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.