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| More like a horse than a fish. |
Seahorse is a wonderful creature since it
resembles a horse while in fact it is a fish. There are 54 species of seahorse
most of them found in shallow tropical and temperate water throughout the
world. They mainly live in the areas with sea grass beds, estuaries, coral
reefs or mangroves. Using its tail, seahorse will bind itself to vegetation to
aid it from drift by the currents.
Seahorses’ sizes range from 1.5 to 35.5 cm (0.6
to 14.0 in). Not like any other fish, seahorse is the only species come with
neck and tail, but like any other fishes, they have gills to allow them to
breath in the water. Seahorse not a good swimmer and spend their whole life in
the same small areas, sometimes just few meters cubic areas. They are not
suitable for rough current areas and will die if caught in the storm-roiled
seas.
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| Seahorse anatomy. |
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| Hard to identify, seahorse resemble their surrounding. |
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| Tied itself to corals or sea grass. |
Previously thought that seahorses mate for life
but further observation shows that some species will stay close together for the
breeding season, while some species show a higher level of mate fidelity than
others. One thing unique about seahorse is the male will get pregnant instead
of the female. With the gestation periods will take around two to four weeks in
most of species.
Despite of their slow movement, seahorse is
voracious eaters and need to continually eating by consuming almost 3,000 or
more brine shrimp per day. By sticking themselves to sea grasses or corals with
its prehensile tails, they waiting for their prey to get closer and then suck
them with its elongated snout.
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| Beautiful species of seahorse. |
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| Another unique species of seahorse. |
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| Pollution affected the life of this wonderful creature. |
They area many other wonderful things about
seahorses, because many of them not just be able to change their colours but
some of them can make themselves look like their surroundings to avoid their
predators and at the same time to increase chances of catching preys. Some of
these wonderful species will be highlighted in their own dedicated articles.
