Hippocampus breviceps, Peters 1869

Sara A. Lourie, Riley A. Pollom & Sarah J. Foster, 2016, A global revision of the Seahorses Hippocampus Rafinesque 1810 (Actinopterygii: Syngnathiformes): Taxonomy and biogeography with recommendations for further research, Zootaxa 4146 (1), pp. 1-66 : 18

H. breviceps Peters 1869

English common names. Short-head Seahorse, knobby seahorse, short-headed seahorse, short-snouted seahorse. Holotype. ZMB 7082 (missing in 2001).

Type locality. Adelaide , South Australia.

Synonyms. H. tuberculatus Castelnau 1875 .

Distribution. Australia (south and west, Tasmania).

Notes. Kuiter (2001) recognizes separate species to the west ( H. tuberculatus ) and east ( H. breviceps ) of the Great Australian Bight. Our data do not show the meristic differences that Kuiter cites in support of this separation (see Appendix C), and there are no genetic data yet available to shed light on the question. Further molecular work is needed to determine whether there exist sufficient differences between these two disjunct populations of H. breviceps to warrant the validity of H. tuberculatus as a distinct species. For now we accept the validity of a single species only.