kevincfishes's Identifications

Yellow-green pipefish near Posidonia seagrass. Initially I thought it might be a Vanacampus but now I am unsure.

EDIT: Correct ID by Kevin Smith, and lateral shot from same day found in camera role has been added to this series, showing the red and blue lateral bars characteristic of female Kaupus.

Juvenile, golden-green pipefish with short snout and flag tail. Indistinct striping on posterior section. Pipefish swam from one brown algae to another whilst being photographed.

Doesn’t quite match Pugnaso.

This is another female.After finding the 1st female (see previous observation) I searched her immediate vicinity (a few metres diameter) hoping to spot a male partner.No luck.Having taken what I hoped were adequate pics of the 1st female,who scarcely moved more than about 30 cm from where I'd found her during the multiple strobe flashes and despite quite strong tidal flow,I moved away to image some other subjects e.g. gobies and gastropods.I then decided to return for more photographs of the lone female.I could not locate her,despite careful scrutiny.But I then noticed another,paler,greener and slightly smaller Deepbody Pipefish ,within a metre of where I'd left the first,more red-brown female. Initially I was fairly sure I'd lucked upon the 'absent' male of a breeding pair.
But as is now apparent(per Janine's comment below) my gender speculation was wrong

[My speculation hinged on these being the only 2 of this species I saw on this snorkel,their mildly different colouration, and their being very close to each other,albeit not observed together ]

The snorkel depth was from 0 to ~3 m (mostly less than 2 m), with much healthy Zostera grass along with silty muddy bare areas,scanty algae,and of course mangrove-lined banks]

MLSSA dive, with buddy WL.The only Syngnathid we saw, but visibility was quite poor. Tide low but starting to rise quite quickly during the roughly 1.5 hour dive, with shifting current direction at different points along the jetty (making photography harder, because we often inadvertently caused suspended sediment to envelope our subjects).

Hidden among drift algae (Caulocystis sp.) at the surface until it realised it had been seen - it left the drift weed and swam along the surface of the water. Appeared to be in an area of ?longshore current - the current transporting a higher concentration of drift weed parallell to shore heading north with an incoming tide. Approximately 15cm long. The week previous saw some strong westerly winds in the area, so very possible it was blown in to the area rather than resident.