Researcher Ralph Appy and a team of students from Occidental College were casting finely knit nets from the shores of Coronado Island in San Diego. They were looking for rays and skates to harvest parasites for their research. But that spring afternoon, they found something rare.
As the students were sorting through their catch, one of them noticed a seagull eyeing something in the sand. “She went over to see what fish had gotten out of the net, and there was a seahorse!” Appy said.
It was a Pacific seahorse, one of the world’s largest species of seahorse that can reach up to 14 inches in length. And thankfully, despite being pecked at by a gull, she was still alive.