First-Ever Baby Seahorse Spotted in British Waters : TreeHugger

First-Ever Baby Seahorse Spotted in British Waters : TreeHugger

A tiny baby seahorse was measured off the coast of Dorset, England. Image via the Seahorse Trust.

It must have been like finding a needle in a haystack, but somehow, in murky water conditions, diver Neil Garrick-Maidment, the executive director of the Seahorse Trust, spotted a single 1.5-inch-long female baby seahorse "clinging onto a piece of seagrass" off the coast of Studland, Dorset -- a finding so rare he said it was "akin to seeing a yeti in the wild."

The Dorset waters are Britain's largest known breeding colony for seahorses, according to the Telegraph, which writes that adult, pregnant male, and juvenile spiny seahorses have been spotted there since surveys of the area began in 1994. But this was something new.