SEAHORSES

  Preproduction of seahorses Seahorses reproduce in an unusual way. The male seahorse becomes pregnant instead of the female.  Most seahorse pregnancies lasts approximately approximately 2 to 3 weeks. The male seahorse has a brood pouch where he carries eggs deposited by the female. When mating, the female seahorse deposits up to 1,500 eggs in the male's pouch. The male carries the eggs for 9 to 45 days until the seahorses emerge fully developed, but very small. The young are then released into the water, and the male often the male often mates again within hours or day during the breeding season.

There are 64 spices in seahorses. Below is information on some of them. 1.Zebra Seahorse  A tropical seahorse with alternating pale and dark zebra-like bands and stripes on the head and body, and often yellow tips on the spines. Lourie et al .(2016) determined that hippocampus is a junior synonym of H. Zebra. 2.Dwarf seahorse The dwarf seahorse is the third smallest species in the world. It is found in seagrass beds in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Coast of Florida, and the Caribbean. 3.Short-snouted seahorse Short snouted seahorses are found in shallow waters, often in estuaries or associated with seagrass meadows. They have even recently been recorded in the Thames! They use their prehensive tail to cling onto seagrass or seaweed, as they are pretty poor swimmers. They don't have teeth and simply suck up their favourite prey of small shrimp and plankton. Seahorses are known to practice monogamy, though we no longer think that they mate for life. They are usually brownish...

History of seahorses  The lined seahorse was first described in 1810 by Perry as Hippocampus erectus. Seahorses are truly unique, and not just because of their unusual equine shape. Unlike most other fish, they are monogamous and mate for life. Rarer still, they are among the only animal species on Earth in which the male bears the unborn young.

A seahorse is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus Hippocampus. " Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek hippocampus, itself from hippos meaning "horse" and kampyos meaning "sea monster". Seahorses range in size from 1.5 to 35.5cm. They are named for their equine appearance, with bent necks and snouted heads and a distinctive trunk and tail. Although they are bony fish, they do not have scales, but rather thin skin stretched over a series of bony plates, which are arranged in rings their bodies. Each species has a distinct number of rings. The armor of bony plates also protects them against predators, and because of this outer skeleton, they no longer have ribs. Seahorses swim upright, propelling themselves using the dorsal fin, another characteristic not shared by their close pipefish relatives, which swim horizontally. Razorfish are the only other fish that swim vertically. The pectoral fins, located on either side of the head behind t...