Along the coastlines of South Australia, the sea dragon — a creature of singular beauty found nowhere else on Earth — has suffered a blow that scientists are calling the worst mass mortality event ever recorded for its entire family of fish. Beginning in March 2025, a toxic algal bloom driven by the rare Karenia cristata spread through state waters, claiming more than 1,600 sea dragons, 1,400 pipefishes, and 160 seahorses, while destroying the kelp forests and seagrass beds these animals depend upon. The event forces a reckoning not only with the fragility of endemic species, but with how swif
Algal bloom decimates sea dragon populations in worst global mass mortality event
Thousands of sea dragons, pipefishes and seahorses died in the algal bloom, with populations of endemic species severely decimated.