Those Magical Sea Horses
I have thought I might try to do what I do in real life. Educate! At the Aquarium I work at I am a volunteer in the Education Department. One of my favorite things is teaching about the wonderful world of water and the amazing creatures within it. Since I have all these years with animals, I thought I could share a little here.
The idea is that every week or month or however often I get around to it I will create a thread about a new animal that I have experience with. I will post educational stuff, personal experiences, and more. I also will want input. I bet a bunch of you guys have met these animals and know about them. If you find links, or extra information, I will add it to the collection of information. By the time we are done the thread on any animal should be a wealth of information!
Well, this time I am going to talk about Those Magical Sea Horses!
Yes, they are real! One of the most common things I hear at the Aquarium is “I thought they were a myth!” In truth, there are Sea Horses in many oceans of the world. I’m going to mostly talk about just one species, then tell little bits about the rest. The particular species I would like to refer to is the Hippocampus Erectus, or the Lined Seahorse. I have only worked with members of this species.
In this first post I will relate personal knowledge. Once I have tapped that, or just don’t remember specific fact, I will do some research and present more information in the next post. The post after that will be about their environmental concerns. I think in this guild it makes sense to devote a post to that. I will then make a post with news stories. Yet another post will be created for Q + A. You ask the Question, I will post the answers there. Finally I will leave a post open for extra stuff that might come up. Everyone who contributes will get credit!
Lined Seahorses are beautiful creatures. They have a sort of pipe like mouth connected to a forward curved head. The body is always upright, and on males there is a distinctive pouch. A long and almost fairy like fin runs along the back of their body. There are stabilizing fins on the side of their heads. The long tail is prehensile, which means it will automatically grab onto anything. Here is a link to a picture.
http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/PicturesSummary.cfm?ID=3283&what=speciesThis picture looks a little odd compared to the smooth Seahorses I work with. Imagine this Seahorse, but none of those things that look like algae sticking out.
Seahorses can change color, which is good for camouflage. I have only seen this done for two reasons. One was for health. An unhealthy Seahorse will become pale. They also change color according to stimulus, especially when mating.
Speaking of mating, Seahorses mate for life. That’s not the hardest thing in the world, because they only live about two years and mate in that last year. I have observed mating behavior. In the Aquarium they mate in the early morning, just when the lights go on. The female chases the male down and wraps around him. She lays her eggs directly into his pouch where they are fertilized.
The male carries the eggs for up to a month. He is considered to be pregnant. It is amazing to watch the pouch grow, and by holding a flashlight up to the pouch you can see the babies. This may seem cruel, but it is a necessary diagnosis method. When a male gives birth he actually has contraction. I played nurse to a Seahorse giving birth. As he would give birth to a few little pencil shaving sized babies at a time, I would scoop them out to prevent their being swept into the filter system or being eaten by the Pipefish(a close relative). It was a wonderful experience. The babies looked like the adults in every way.
The first litter of babies died. We think the male didn’t carry them long enough. Fortunately the female was eager to mate again. She was trying to mate while he was giving birth! He had four more litters until the two were separated, for his own health. He had an average of 120 babies in each litter.
You may wonder what a Seahorse feels like. Most of them feels soft. The belly is delicate. The head and tail are distinctly armored, but it feels like a damp felt is pulled over the armor. A wonderful part of holding a Seahorse is having the tail wrap around your finger. There is something positively magical about it. The hard part is making them let go. There is a trick to it. You can just tickly the tail lightly, and it will go loose.
With everything I have to say about Seahorse it may sound like they would make good pets. Please don’t think that. Most Seahorses in fish stores are taken from the wild. It depletes the natural stocks. Seahorses need very particular care and are prone to many diseases. When our males are pregnant we always have to check the swelling belly to be sure that they aren’t really getting a terrible gas problem that causes them to float upside down. The babies need very special food that we grow ourselves. The salinity and water temperature is carefully monitored every day. It is not easy!
Speaking of how to care for them, I should talk about some of that! The most common food for them is something called mysid shrimp. It is sold in frozen patties that are thawed and carefully dropped into the water. We are supposed to make sure that they eat it before it hits the ground. Seahorses at my Aquarium are crazy, however. Once they have been there for about 6 months they won’t eat a mysid until it touches the ground. They are strange. A treat is adult brine shrimp. These are basically sea monkeys. We have a large vat in one of the galleries. These are fed to the Seahorses alive. It is good enrichment and variety for the Seahorses. Making sure that animals will eat more than one type of food is important. As Seahorses get older they get stranger. Even though the brine shrimp are alive, they will wait for them to touch the ground too! There has to be something in the water at my Aquarium. As I tell you more stories about other animals you will understand.
We keep fake algae in their tank at all times. The Seahorses can grab onto it and feel secure. We would never keep Seahorses in a tank without that fake algae. It is fake because it is easier to clean that way, and real algae is difficult to keep alive. Seahorses are social creatures, so if we need to take care of one in the Medical Center we tend to keep it with others.
I am sure I have left out a great deal here, and if I think of more I will add it.
Oh, and I apologize for the scattered nature of what I wrote. I sort of just spat out what came to mind.
xd 
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