Sea Horses

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Sea Horse

The Hippocampus hudonius, also known as the common sea horse, is the largest of over 24 species of sea horses.and is a member of the pipe fish family (syngnatidae) These animals can be found in most temparate climates in the world including the U.S., South America, India, China, and Australia. Although these creatures are becoming endangered many efforts are bieng made to conserve them in the wild.
Eating habits and prey
Seahorses eat by a special snatch-sucking movement of their snout. This suction movement is so strong that a clearly audible noise develops and even for fodder, which exceeds the snout diameter by far (for example large ghost shrimp), is easily torn and in-sucked. Immediately after aspirating the food remainders withdraw in from of a breath-fine nebula cloud from the sides of the seahorses head, it seems as if its head steams. Before a seahorse catches its food however, time goes by. The seahorses watches its potential booty quite exactly. Already a few days old babies look exactly at each piece of plankton or brine shrimp before the suck it. But: If the animals made however only once their choice and the prey tries to escape, the otherwise so leisurely coming along seahorses transform suddenly into fast and agile floats chasing the potential food until they catch it.Typical for the most sea horses is their long muzzle. Unlike many other species of seahorses the Tigertails(pictured below L.) sit for hours in front of or beneath live rocks and stick their snout into each hole and crack. They pursue prey only rarely but wait patiently for the fodder coming along. Besides they get on other seahorses nerves by permanently hanging on them and only hardly been shaken off.


Mating

Before the actual mating the male seahorse offers its waterfilled breeding bag
over hours to the female again and again. It opens the input of the pouch extremely wide by a special movement. The female s...