>As the first blue hues crept into the otherwise lightless black sky, I carefully continued down the slippery ladder. Donning full scuba gear and tank—with a clipboard, fins, and underwater camera somehow all wedged, clipped, or balanced around my body—I sank into the inky, inscrutable water. Earthly burden lifted, I joined the weightless and serene world of the coral reef at dawn.
>Crossing the Indonesian reef crest, with the sun rising behind me, I dropped down the coral wall, still in blackness save for a school of bioluminescent flashlight fish, whose symbiotic bacteria emitted an incongruous glow from specialized sacs beneath their eyes. My presence scared off these skittish biological lanterns, leaving the reef uncharacteristically quiet as I descended into the dark.
>My goal at this unsociable hour was to become one of the privileged few humans to ever witness the birth of a pygmy seahorse. Enigmatic, charismatic, and poorly known, these miniature fish had been reluctant to give up their secrets, until now.
>Embarking on the doctoral research that culminated in my thesis, “The Biology and Conservation of Gorgonian-Associated Pygmy Seahorses,” I could never have foreseen what fascinating subjects they would make. In this first research into the biology of pygmy seahorses, I set out to explore [their private lives](https://nautil.us/seahorse-love-works-in-mysterious-ways-389285/).
>Male pregnancy had already been confirmed for pygmies from museum specimens, but their natural behaviors on the coral reefs of Southeast Asia had remained a mystery since their rather accidental discovery in 1970. I couldn’t have predicted, therefore, that my notes on the species would read more like a novel of the Fifty Shades series than a scientific record, revealing many of these mysterious animals’ darkest secrets.
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>As the first blue hues crept into the otherwise lightless black sky, I carefully continued down the slippery ladder. Donning full scuba gear and tank—with a clipboard, fins, and underwater camera somehow all wedged, clipped, or balanced around my body—I sank into the inky, inscrutable water. Earthly burden lifted, I joined the weightless and serene world of the coral reef at dawn.
>Crossing the Indonesian reef crest, with the sun rising behind me, I dropped down the coral wall, still in blackness save for a school of bioluminescent flashlight fish, whose symbiotic bacteria emitted an incongruous glow from specialized sacs beneath their eyes. My presence scared off these skittish biological lanterns, leaving the reef uncharacteristically quiet as I descended into the dark.
>My goal at this unsociable hour was to become one of the privileged few humans to ever witness the birth of a pygmy seahorse. Enigmatic, charismatic, and poorly known, these miniature fish had been reluctant to give up their secrets, until now.
>Embarking on the doctoral research that culminated in my thesis, “The Biology and Conservation of Gorgonian-Associated Pygmy Seahorses,” I could never have foreseen what fascinating subjects they would make. In this first research into the biology of pygmy seahorses, I set out to explore [their private lives](https://nautil.us/seahorse-love-works-in-mysterious-ways-389285/).
>Male pregnancy had already been confirmed for pygmies from museum specimens, but their natural behaviors on the coral reefs of Southeast Asia had remained a mystery since their rather accidental discovery in 1970. I couldn’t have predicted, therefore, that my notes on the species would read more like a novel of the Fifty Shades series than a scientific record, revealing many of these mysterious animals’ darkest secrets.