Seahorse: The only animal where the father gives birth 

Horses are wonderful animals, right? They can gallop fast, have big and beautiful eyes, can sleep standing up and are man’s good friend. Okay, but do you know that horses can be found under the oceans too? Yes, they are called seahorses! Do you know anything about them? No? Well, worry not, we are here to tell you about some of the most intriguing facts.  

Dads give birth 
As we all know, everything in the world has an exception, and seahorse is one indeed. So, what exactly makes them an anomaly? The fact that it’s the male that carries the eggs until they hatch, making seahorse the only species in the world that has dads giving birth to offspring. While mating, the female seahorses pass on the eggs to the males which stay glued to their bodies. Over time, the males develop an abdominal pouch called ‘brood pouch’ (much like a human placenta or a kangaroo’s pouch) which carries the eggs and nurture them with required nutrients (including their sperms) and oxygen. Interestingly, there’s a skin fold that keeps the pouch from any harm for 24 to 45 days of incubation, until the babies are born.  

Decoding the name 
First things first, seahorse is not a mammal but a fish. Now that’s settled, let’s move on to its etymology. As you can already guess, seahorse got its name from terrestrial horse as its appearance identical. In fact, this small (half inch to a foot in length) marine fish belonging to the genus ‘Hippocampus’ (hippo meaning ‘horse’ and campus meaning ‘sea monster’ in ancient Greek) has the most notable feature which is its horse-like head. Another theory however suggests that seahorse derives from the Middle English ‘sehors’ meaning walrus.  

Seahorse: Fish without scales 
There are as many as 47 species of seahorse that live in shallow tropical waters and prefer private areas such as sea grass beds and coral reefs. But these fish don’t have scales. Instead, they have a thin skin stretched over bony plates arranged in the form of rings across their entire body.  

This fish swims upright 
Another unique feature of seahorse is that it swims upright, that too very slowly. When they are not swimming, seahorses prefer to stay static as they rest with their tails wrapped around a stationary object in the vicinity. In fact, the dwarf seahorse is so slow that it is regarded as the world’s slowest moving fish, with a speed of only five feet per hour.  

Seahorse has a high appetite 
Equipped with flexible necks and long snouts, seahorses have the unique ability to simply suck up food whenever they want. In fact, they have high metabolism and appetite, so much so, that they can eat 3000 brine shrimp a day on an average. They are also known to constantly look for food.  

Seahorses have unique ‘coronets’ 
You read it right. Just like humans have unique set of fingerprints, similarly, seahorses have a distinct bony crown-like feature on their heads that are called “coronets.”  

Seahorse fact file 

• Seahorse is now an endangered animal as their original habitats such as coral reefs are disappearing in large numbers.  
• Seahorses are prey to overfishing and illegal trade, are often used to make Chinese herbal medicines. 
• Seahorse only lives for 3 years and are carnivorous in nature. 
• Seahorse has something called ‘swim bladder’ which is nothing but a tiny pocket inside its body that regulates the volume of air and help them move up and down. 
• Seahorse is a master camouflager.