Eel-like fish ID

[FishLovingStudent]

Anybody have any clue? Found it at Ansel point. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

 

[drbill]

Hard to tell from the image but I'd guess a pipefish

 

[agilis]

Another possibility is some type of juvenile Snake Eel, Ophichthus sp. The photo does not show detail clearly, but if it has a fan shaped tail and a snout then it probably is a Pipefish.

 

[fstbttms]

It's a pipefish. I see these daily in the SF Bay.

 

[FishLovingStudent]

Definitely not a pipefish, trust me, I volunteer for one of the worlds leading specialist groups on pipefish and seahorses

It moved like an eel and had a very pointy mouth. Very stange, I was thinking a juvenile of some sort of larger eel?

Heres a video of its movement, sorry for the unsteadyness, it moved quite sporadically.

[video=youtube;VBQ-GfO_eL8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBQ-GfO_eL8&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[fstbttms]

Definitely not a pipefish, trust me, I volunteer for one of the worlds leading specialist groups on pipefish and seahorses

Really? Then why are you asking a bunch of amateurs to identify it?

 

[FishLovingStudent]

Because:

A) Volunteer (i.e. I am fully aware on how pipefish and seahorses look and which ones are in my area, but not an expert on them)
B) This is NOT a seahorse or pipefish.
C) An expert of one type of fish does not mean by extension that they know every type of fish.
D) Not everybody on here is an amateur, Dr.Bill is essentially as un-amateur as I want to be one day

I did not mean to be rude, sorry if I came off that way. It just certainly was not a pipefish. We only have one in my area, the Bay Pipefish, and it does not move or have the same appearance as this fella.

 

[fstbttms]

Because:

A) Volunteer (i.e. I am fully aware on how pipefish and seahorses look and which ones are in my area, but not an expert on them)
B) This is NOT a seahorse or pipefish.
C) An expert of one type of fish does not mean by extension that they know every type of fish.

I did not mean to be rude, sorry if I came off that way. It just certainly was not a pipefish. We only have one in my area, the Bay Pipefish, and it does not move or have the same appearance as this fella.

Google "Bay pipefish." You'll find many images that look very much like yours.

 

[FishLovingStudent]

Its not a bay pipefish or a pipefish of any kind. They do not swim by undulating their bodies like in the video, are as fast as a snail and do not have that general appearance (though the picture quality makes it hard to tell).

Here is a bay pipefish from the same dive.

 

[Tigerman]

Pipefish are muc faster than they normally seem to be when theire just hanging around. They are definetly NOT "snail paced"