theyre close relatives of seahorses ( and seadragons ) and look like a seahorse that someone just kinda stretched out
also like seahorses, the males are the ones who incubate the eggs to hatching after the female transfers em over ( occasionally theres more eggs than can actually fit inside dad, so guess what. sometimes they get eaten )
theyre pretty slow swimmers and rely mainly on camouflage to get by ( and some species prefer to stick with groups of others, like above ! )
theres a few freshwater species, but theyre mostly saltwater - my favorites probably the banded pipefish but its hard to find good photos of it so heres an orange banded pipefish, close enough
