Body coloration is highly variable to match surroundings and goes from grey to cream, and from bright yellow, to green or red and even brownish.

This species is found on a variety of substrates including sponges, weedy rocky reefs, soft corals but mainly on seagrass beds.

([5], [6]) The spiny seahorse has a carnivorous diet and feeds on small crustaceans and other planktonic organisms.

The latter includes villi rich in capillaries that surround each fertilized egg creating a sort of placenta supplying the embryos.

It is subject both to targeted exploitation for use in traditional medicine and the aquarium trade, and to population losses from bycatch in the shrimp fishery.

As most seahorses enter trade as bycatch, imposing export quotas would achieve next to nothing for wild populations.

[1] Decreases in population sizes are likely due to exploitation for international trade, and to bycatch and habitat destruction.

Trade is supplied by catching the species directly but also as bycatch in other non-selective fisheries such as shrimp trawls.