When it comes to fascinating and beautiful marine animals, we cannot forget seahorse. Seahorses are adorable and captivating little cutie that we often see in cartoons, movies, aquariums, and many more. Seahorses are actually fish, and they breathe through gills just like all fish do. The thing that makes this fish unique is that they don’t have the appearance or the look that resembles a fish at all. There are more interesting things about them that you might not know about, so let’s check them out below.
- Seahorses propel themselves by using a small fin on their back that flutters up to 35 times per second.
- They have small pectoral fins located near the back of their heads that they use for steering.
- Seahorses prefer to swim in pairs with their tails linked together. How cute, right?
- Seahorses have a prehensile tail that allows them to grip onto eel grass and other weeds. The tail also prevents them from being washed away by strong currents and waves as well.
- Seahorses are rather inept swimmers because of their body shapes, and they can easily die of exhaustion when caught in storm-roiled seas.
- Seahorses have exoskeletons, their bodies are made up of hard, external, bony plates that are fused together with a fleshy covering. They do not have scales, and they are too bony and indigestible, so only a few predators eat them.
- They feed by using their elongated snouts to suck in plankton and small crustaceans that drift by. A seahorse can suck up food from as far as 3 centimeters away.
- The seahorse can move each of its eyes independently so it can follow the activity of passing sea life easily. They have excellent eyesight, and they can look forwards and backward at the same time.
- Seahorses have neither teeth nor stomachs, food passes through their digestive systems so quickly that they must eat almost constantly to stay alive.
- Seahorses are the only animal species on Earth in which the male bears the unborn young.
- Both male and female seahorses can change color very quickly and match any surroundings in which it finds itself.
- Seahorses pair for life. Seahorses engage in an eight-hour courtship dance which includes spinning around, swimming side by side, and changing colors.
- When mating, the female seahorse releases up to 50 eggs into a pouch on the male’s abdomen.
- Male seahorses carry the eggs in their pouch until they hatch before releasing fully formed miniature seahorses into the water. The number of babies can be as little as 5 or as many as 1,500 young.
- Seahorses are under threat worldwide because: The Traditional Chinese Medicine Trade, The Curio Trade, and over-collecting.
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