First photographic evidence of trunk brooding in the southern Australian pipefish Notiocampus ruber (Teleostei, Syngnathidae)

Abstract Photographic observations from Gamay (Botany Bay), New South Wales, provide the first empirical evidence of ventral trunk brooding in the endemic southern Australian Red Pipefish Notiocampus ruber Ramsay & Ogilby, 1886, a historically understudied species. Syngnathidae is divided into two major clades, trunk‐brooding Nerophinae and tail‐brooding Syngnathinae, a framework supported by molecular phylogenetic studies. The observations reported here support the placement of Notiocampus within Nerophinae and reveal shared characters with the northeastern Atlantic nerophine genera Nerophis and Entelurus . This morphological evidence resolves a persistent uncertainty and underscores the need to include Notiocampus in future phylogenomic studies of Nerophinae.