A sneak peak of an extremely rare seahorse, filmed for the first time in the wild, just outside the Tasman Fracture Marine Park at a depth of about 100m.

Captured by IMAS researchers on baited remote underwater video (BRUV), the collar seahorse Hippocampus jugumus is a cryptic creature, only known from a few specimens washed up in New Zealand and on Lord Howe Island.

The male collar seahorse certainly pulls its parenting weight. The female seahorse transfers her fertilised eggs to the male, who gestates them in his special brood pouch for 24 weeks, before giving birth to live young. It’s a remarkable biological phenomenon only known to happen in seahorses and sea dragons.