It’s hard to imagine any other name than seahorse for this very tiny creature. It is part of a family of 54 different species of Hippocampus which live mainly in sheltered shallow tropical waters.

Adult seahorses can grow to between 0.6 to 14 inches, and it is the male of the species who carries the eggs to term. During the mating process, the male and female may court for several days and even swim with their tails locked together. After courtship, the male’s brood pouch expands in order to receive the females eggs. She will lay up to 1,500 eggs into the pouch, which the male will gestate anywhere from nine days to six weeks. The young are born as very tiny seahorses who are then left on their own to survive.

The seahorse’s diet consists mainly of crustaceans and they feed by sucking food into their snouts. The eyes of a seahorse can move independently. They swim very slowly and always in an upright manner.

Text source: Wikipedia under Creative Commons licence.
Photo credit: Wikipedia public domain image.

© Copyright Vince Capone 2013