Fiji - The First Sight of Dragon Sea Moth in Fiji?

It was a normal dive day at Enchanted Forest at Rainbow Reef. I did not however, expect I would encounter this little creature, the Dragon Sea Moth (Eurypegasus Draconis). It may even be the first sight of a Dragon Sea Moth in Fiji. 

Dragon Sea Moth, also called little dragonfish or short dragonfish, is under family of Pegasidae, the Sea Moth family and there are five species of sea moths. They have an usual appearance, their body encased in thick and bony plate, have long snout and large wing like pectoral fins.

Dragon Sea Moth is the most widely distributed sea moth, they occur primarily in tropical water of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. But they could be missed so easily as they are so small, only grow up to 8cm in length and they often resembles pieces of shell or rubble lying on the sandy bottom. They are very well camouflaged, so they are not commonly seen. 

Sometimes you would find the most amazing thing in the most boring rubble area. That is where I encountered my first sea moth. It was during the later part of my dive when we reached to a rubble sandy patch area, I spotted a tiny black block and thought it was a piece of broken coral. I took a closer look, it has a elongated shape like "pipefish snout" at the edge but bigger size. Then I realised that it was a kind of animal. It was very camouflaged and it took me sometime to see the whole body structure.

It's whole body length is around 4-5cm. The front part of the body is in black colour with few white marks, it has an elongate snout and top of the body is undulating. The back part of the body is translucent, so I could see the tail bone, the tail rings and its transparent dorsal fin.
The side of the body has pair of long translucent pectoral fins which was closed. The body structure and colour is nothing that I saw before. It looks kind of weird and amazing at the same time. I did not know what creature is that at the time when I saw it and how rare is it to see it there. 

The owner of the dive shop that I dove with has been diving in this area for 10+ years and she had never seen one before and she said "we are not in the distribution range of sea moth here". So I started looking up more information and identify this creature.

Dragon Sea Moth has some interesting behaviours. They only swim if they are disturbed, they normally crawl over the seafloor with their pectoral fins alternately. The fascinating thing about them is that they shed their skin in one piece, probably every one to five days. I am guessing that the one I encountered may just shed its skin as the back part of the body was completely translucent.

With the fact that Fiji is part of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, however, I did not find much information of them being sighted in Fiji, it is definitely rare to see them in the Fiji waters. No matter if Dragon Sea Moth is normally distributed withinin Fiji, I had such an amazing experience to encounter this little guy.
Such a funny little creature. I hope to see it again.