New Aquarium Development Could Shed Light on Sea Dragons

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – The Georgia Aquarium hopes that a new development in their sea dragon exhibit will shed light on a mysterious creature. Two of its sea dragons have apparently mated successfully and the male is carrying the eggs.

That's right the female transfers her eggs onto the tail of the male, and he carries them around until they hatch, 4 to 6 weeks later.

But little else is known about the unusual fish, which look like sea horses with weed-like appendages. The aquarium doesn't even know which of its seven are male and which are female, much less who the expecting mother is.

Dennis Christen, assistant manager of husbandry, says the aquarium had to make lots of adjustments to encourage the fish to mate:

CHRISTEN: With different numbers of animals, different species of animals, different lighting configurations, different intensities of light, different types of plants, different diets, so hopefully this is a measure of some success.

Sea dragons are a protected species from off the coast of Australia. Only two other aquariums have birthed sea dragons in captivity.