How about that beauty and it's a Glauert's Seadragon. It's really not much of a dragon is it rarely gets larger than about eight inches or twenty centimeters. (WIKI: Leafy Seadragon)
Don't even think about owning one as, if you can even obtain one, it will cost you $10K to $15K to buy it. Don't let your ego grow to your large wallet since you probably won't be able to take care of it properly and only public aquaria have had any success. None have been successful breeding them.
They live around Australia but they're endangered by industrial runoff as are ecosystems in many places. The Australian states where they occur appear to have unanimously declared them protected creatures and it's not legal to take them from the wild without some kind of license.
Regardless of the background facts, it's a lovely and harmless creature. The only purpose to the leaves is in camouflage to make itself look like some seaweed. This creature is another example, like the seahorse, of paternal parenting since it's the male who cares for the eggs. Unfortunately, there's one trait they don't share with seahorses since they can't wrap their tails around something to secure themselves so many are lost due to being washed ashore.
Just because they're so pretty, here's another one. Unknown why the differences in color. Maybe the first photographer got creative.
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