Seadragons hatch at San Diego aquarium

SAN DIEGO — A Southern California aquarium has successfully bred the rare weedy seadragon, the lesser known cousin of the seahorse that resembles seaweed when floating.

San Diego’s Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a news release Thursday that two weedy seadragons have hatched this week, making the aquarium one of the few in the world to successfully breed the unusual fish.

The babies with leafy appendages are less than an inch long, and have eaten their first meal of tiny shrimp. The aquarium is keeping the delicate creatures out of public view for now.

The hatchlings come less than a year after the aquarium at the University of California, San Diego built what is believed to be one of the world’s largest habitats for the seadragons, whose native populations off Australia are threatened by pollution, warming oceans and the illegal pet and alternative medicine trades.

The 18-foot-long tank has 11 weedy seadragons and three leafy seadragons, which have never been bred in captivity.

The aquarium hopes to breed the two different kinds of seadragons so scientists can learn more about the mysterious species. Little is known about them because their populations are so small and in remote areas.

Since 1995, the Birch Aquarium has bred 13 different seahorse species, sharing more than 5,000 juvenile seahorses with other aquariums around the world.

So far, only the weedy seadragon has been bred in captivity, and only a handful of times.

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach was the first in the world to breed the weedy seadragons in 2001. It also is trying to breed leafy seadragons.