There are so many beautiful creatures in our oceans, and the seahorse is one of them! We want to tell you some facts about this sweet, small and mysterious creature!
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WHAT IS A SEAHORSE?
- They are fish, but on the contrary to most other fish have an exo-skeleton
- There are more than 50 species of seahorses
- Found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world, mainly in sheltered areas with lots of seaweeds and grasses.
- Seahorses vary widely in size, they can be as small as a pumpkin seed or as large as a banana.
- They mainly eat little shrimp, fish, plankton and fish larvae
- Less than 1/1000 will become an adult due to predators
- They only live between 1-5 years
- They can camouflage to hide in its surrounding
- Their small dorsal fin beats at 30-70 times per second
- Seahorses are territorial and are very slow swimmers, in fact they can only swim about 5 feet per hour
WHAT MAKES SEAHORSES SO SPECIAL?
- They have existed for 13 million years
- They mate for life
- They don’t have a gut, so they must eat almost constantly since food passes through its digestive system so quickly
- In the breeding season, the mates come together each morning and perform elaborate mating dances.
- Being one of the very few animal species where the male carries their babies. The female depositing her eggs into his pouch, and the male fertilising them internally
- The male can birth up to 1,500 fry (baby seahorse) at one time
- A male seahorse can deliver babies in the morning and be pregnant again by nightfall
- Babies are born fully formed and are completely independent of their parents
- They have excellent eyesight and their eyes work independently of each other
WHAT IS THE THREAT TO SEAHORSES?
- Except for crabs, seahorses have very few natural predators, mainly because they are too bony and indigestible
- Seahorses are in theory protected by international trade convention CITES, however are known to be traded on the black market, mainly in Asia.
- The Traditional Chinese Medicine Trade takes in excess of up to 150 million seahorses a year from the wild and these are used for all types of medicine.
- Habitat loss threatens seahorses as they inhabit shallow areas that are easily influenced by human activities
Written by the Nature Unite team