A short message about the seahorse. Interesting facts about seahorses

One appearance of these fish sets up pleasant associations with childhood, toys and fairy tales.

The horse swims in an upright position and tilts its head so gracefully that, looking at it, it is impossible not to compare it with some kind of small magic horse.

It is covered not with scales, but with bone plates. However, in his shell, he is so light and fast that he literally soars in the water, and his body shimmers with all colors - from orange to gray-blue, from lemon yellow to fiery red. By the brightness of the colors, it is just right to compare this fish with tropical birds.

Seahorses inhabit coastal waters tropical and subtropical seas. But they are also found in the North Sea, for example, off the southern coast of England. Choose quieter places; they don't like rough water.

Among them there are dwarfs the size of a little finger, and there are giants under thirty centimeters. The smallest species - Hippocampus zosterae (pygmy seahorse) - is found in the Gulf of Mexico. Its length does not exceed four centimeters, and the body is very hardy.

In Black and mediterranean seas you can meet the long-faced, spotted Hippocampus guttulatus, whose length reaches 12-18 centimeters. The most famous representatives of the species Hippocampus kuda, which lives off the coast of Indonesia. Seahorses of this species (their length is 14 centimeters) are painted brightly and colorfully, some are speckled, others are striped. The largest seahorses are found near Australia.

Whether they are dwarfs or giants, seahorses resemble each other like brothers: a trusting look, capricious lips and an elongated "horse" muzzle. Their tail is hooked to the stomach, and horns adorn their heads. It is impossible to confuse these graceful and colorful fish, similar to jewelry or toys, with any inhabitant of the water element.

How does pregnancy proceed in males?

Even now, zoologists find it difficult to say how many species there are. seahorses. Possibly 30-32 species, although this figure is subject to change. The fact is that seahorses are difficult to classify. Their appearance is too changeable. Yes, and they know how to hide in such a way that a needle thrown into a haystack will envy.

When Amanda Vincent of Montreal's McGill University began studying seahorses in the late 1980s, she was annoyed: "At first, I couldn't even notice those subs." Masters of mimicry, in a moment of danger, they change their color, repeating the color of surrounding objects. Therefore, they are easily mistaken for algae. Many seahorses, like gutta-percha babies, can even change the shape of their bodies. They have small growths and nodules. Some seahorses can be difficult to distinguish from corals.

This plasticity, this “color music” of the body helps them not only to fool enemies, but also to seduce partners. The German zoologist Rüdiger Verhasselt shares his observations: “I had a pink-red male in my aquarium. I put a bright yellow female with a red dot on him. The male began to look after the new fish and after a few days turned the same color as her - even red specks appeared.

In order to watch enthusiastic pantomimes and colorful confessions, one must go underwater early in the morning. In their confessions, they follow a funny etiquette: they nod their heads to greet a friend, while clinging to neighboring plants with their tails. Sometimes they freeze, getting closer in a “kiss”. Or whirl in a stormy love dance, and the males now and then inflate their stomachs.

The date is over - and the fish spread out to the sides. Adyu! See you next time! Seahorses usually live in monogamous pairs, loving each other to death, which they often have in the form of nets. After the death of a partner, his half misses, but after a few days or weeks he finds a roommate again. Seahorses settled in an aquarium suffer especially from the loss of a partner. And it happens that they die one after another, unable to bear the grief.

What is the secret of such affection? In the kindred of souls? Here's how biologists explain it: by regularly walking and caressing each other, seahorses synchronize their biological clocks. This helps them choose the most opportune moment for procreation. Then their meeting is delayed for several hours, or even days. They glow with excitement and whirl in a dance in which, as we remember, males inflate their stomachs. It turns out that the male has a wide fold on the abdomen, where the female lays her eggs.

Surprisingly, in seahorses, the male bears the offspring, having previously fertilized the eggs in the abdominal bag.

But this behavior is not as exotic as it might seem. Other species of fish are also known, for example, cichlids, in which males hatch caviar. But only in seahorses are we dealing with a process similar to pregnancy. The tissue on the inside of the brood pouch thickens in the male, as in the mammalian uterus. This tissue becomes a kind of placenta; it binds the father's body to the embryos and nourishes them. This process is controlled by the hormone prolactin, which stimulates lactation in humans - the formation of mother's milk.

With the onset of pregnancy, walking through the underwater forests stops. The male stays in an area of about one square meter. In order not to compete with him in obtaining food, the female delicately swims to the side.

After a month and a half, "birth" occurs. The seahorse presses against the kelp stalk and inflates its belly again. Sometimes a whole day passes before the first fry slips out of the bag. Then the young will start to emerge in pairs, faster and faster, and soon the bag will expand so much that dozens of fry will swim out of it at the same time. Number of newborns different types Miscellaneous: Some seahorses breed up to 1600 babies, while others have only two fry.

Sometimes the "birth" is so difficult that the males die of exhaustion. In addition, if for some reason the embryos die, then the male who carried them will also die.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of the seahorse's reproductive functions. The whole childbearing process is too "unorthodox." Indeed, the structure of the seahorse appears to be a mystery if you try to explain it as the result of evolution. As one major expert said a few years ago: “In relation to evolution, the seahorse is in the same category as the platypus. Since it is a mystery that confuses and destroys all theories trying to explain the origin of this fish! Recognize the Divine Creator, and everything is explained.

What do seahorses do if they don't flirt and expect offspring? One thing is certain: they do not shine with success in swimming, which is not surprising given their constitution. They have; only three small fins: the dorsal helps to swim forward, and the two gill fins maintain vertical balance and serve as a rudder. In a moment of danger, seahorses can briefly speed up their movement, flapping their fins up to 35 times per second (some scientists even call the number "70"). They are much better at vertical maneuvers. By changing the volume of the swim bladder, these fish move up and down in a spiral.

However, most of the time, the seahorse hangs motionless in the water, catching its tail on algae, coral, or even the neck of a relative. It seems that he is ready to hang around doing nothing all day. However, with visible laziness, he manages to catch a lot of prey - tiny crustaceans and fry. It has only recently been possible to observe how this happens.

The seahorse does not rush for prey, but waits until it swims up to it. Then he draws in the water, swallowing careless small fry. Everything happens so fast that you can't see it with the naked eye. However, scuba divers say that when you get close to a seahorse, you sometimes hear smacking. The appetite of this fish is amazing: barely born, the seahorse manages to swallow about four thousand miniature shrimps in the first ten hours of life.

In total, he is destined to live, if he's lucky, four or five years. Enough time to leave behind millions of descendants. It seems that with such numbers, the prosperity of seahorses is ensured. However, it is not. Out of a thousand fry, only two survive on average. All the rest themselves fall into someone's mouth. However, in this whirlwind of births and deaths, seahorses have been afloat for forty million years. Only human intervention can destroy this species.

According to the message World Fund wildlife, the number of seahorses is rapidly declining. Thirty species of these fish are included in the Red Book, that is, almost all species known to science. The ecology is primarily responsible for this. The oceans are turning into a world dump. Its inhabitants degenerate and die.

Half a century ago, the Chesapeake Bay is a narrow, long bay off the coast American states Maryland and Virginia (its length reaches 270 kilometers) - was considered a real paradise for seahorses. Now you can hardly find them there. Alison Scarratt, director of the National Aquarium in Baltimore, estimates that ninety percent of the algae in the bay have died in that half-century, due to water pollution. But algae were natural environment seahorse habitats.

Another reason for the decline is the massive capture of seahorses off the coast of Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and the Philippines. According to Amanda Vincent, at least 26 million of these fish are harvested every year. A small part of them then ends up in aquariums, and most die. For example, from these cute fish, drying them, they make souvenirs - brooches, key rings, belt buckles. By the way, for the sake of beauty, they bend their tail back, giving the body the shape of the letter S.

However most of of captured seahorses - about twenty million according to the World Wildlife Fund - end up with pharmacists in China, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia and Singapore. The largest transshipment point for the sale of this "medical raw material" is Hong Kong. From here it is sold at thirty superfluous countries including India and Australia. Here, a kilo of seahorses costs about $1,300.

From these dried fish, crushed and mixed with other substances, such as tree bark, drugs are prepared that are just as popular in Japan, Korea, China as we are - aspirin or analgin. They help with asthma, coughs, headaches and especially impotence. AT recent times this Far Eastern "Viagra" became popular in Europe.

However, even ancient authors knew that medicines could be prepared from seahorses. So, Pliny the Elder (24-79) wrote that in case of hair loss, one should use an ointment prepared from a mixture of dried seahorses, marjoram oil, resin and lard. In 1754, the English Gentlemen's Magazine advised breastfeeding mothers to take seahorse extract "for better milk flow." Of course, old recipes may cause a smile, but spends the same now World Organization health research " healing properties seahorse."

Meanwhile, Amanda Vincent and a number of biologists are advocating a complete ban on the uncontrolled harvesting and trade of seahorses, trying to end predatory fishing, as whaling was done in its time. The situation is that in Asia, seahorses are caught mainly by poachers. To end this, the researcher created the Project Seahorse organization back in 1986, which is trying to protect seahorses in Vietnam, Hong Kong and the Philippines, as well as to establish a civilized trade in them. Things are especially successful on the Philippine island of Khandayan.

The inhabitants of the local village of Handumon have been harvesting seahorses for centuries. However, in just a decade, from 1985 to 1995, their catches dropped by almost 70 percent. Therefore, the seahorse rescue program proposed by Amanda Vincent was perhaps the only hope for the fishermen.

To begin with, it was decided to create a protected area with total area thirty-three hectares, where fishing was completely banned. There, all the seahorses were counted and even numbered, putting a collar on them. From time to time, divers looked into this water area and checked if the “lazy homebodies”, seahorses, had swum away from here.

We agreed that males with full brood bags will not be caught outside the protected area. If they were caught in the net, they were thrown back into the sea. In addition, environmentalists have tried to re-plant mangroves and underwater forests of algae - the natural shelters of these fish.

In some zoos - in Stuttgart, Berlin, Basel, as well as in the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the California Aquarium, the breeding of these fish is going well. Perhaps they can be saved.

In the seas surrounding Russia, there are only two species of seahorses (although the species diversity of seahorses is high, only different seas There are 32 species of seahorses in the world. These are the Black Sea seahorse and the Japanese seahorse. The first lives in Black and Seas of Azov, and the second in Japanese.

“Our” seahorses are small and do not have chic long outgrowths all over their bodies, like, for example, a rag-picker that lives in warm seas and masquerading as thickets of sargasso algae. Their shell modestly performs protective function: It is very strong and usually painted to match the background color.

As with many creatures that fill the seas, skies and land, there is no link for the seahorse that can connect it with any other form of life. Like all major types of living creatures, the complex seahorse was created suddenly, as the book of Genesis tells us.

Among unusual fish sea Horse is distinguished by a special eccentricity: it is difficult to recognize fish in it. let's talk a little about seahorses - why are they not similar to their other counterparts from the class of fish?

Almost all fish swim in the same way: the body is located horizontally and in the direction of movement. In seahorses, the body when swimming is upright, or slightly tilted forward. The strange way in which the body is positioned when swimming in seahorses is associated with the structure of these fish.

Fins and swim bladder

In most fish, we see several fins: dorsal, caudal, anal, paired ventral and paired pectoral. Seahorses have half the number of fins: they have only three fins that help them move in the water:

A very small, fan-shaped dorsal fin is required for forward propulsion.
Tiny pectoral fins help maintain vertical balance and control movement.

Helps keep the body upright swim bladder. It is located along the entire body, the front part of it comes into the head, which is typical only for this fish.

The swim bladder is divided into two parts. The volume of the head part of the bladder is noticeably larger than the abdominal part. It is this structure of the swim bladder that contributes to the vertical position of the skate when swimming. The seahorse is built like a float: the upper part of the body is lighter than the lower one. The center of gravity is shifted down - to the tail part of the body, so the head turned out to be lighter and located at the top.

Reproduction: ritual morning greetings and male color change

How seahorses breed is the incredible and strange uniqueness of this amazing fish. The male and the female seem to have reversed roles - the male bears and gives birth to the cubs. Scientists have learned about this quite recently - in the last century.

Before talking about reproduction, you need to pay attention to the outer integument of the body of seahorses:

The torso of seahorses is covered on top with bony plates, which form very strong prickly armor. This is a real shell, which is difficult to break even in dead fish.
The body of the female is completely covered with bony plates, while the male has no plates at the base of the abdomen. Because here is a voluminous leathery pocket in which he bears his offspring.

The reproduction of seahorses living in tropical seas has interesting features in behavior. Early in the morning, males perform ritual greetings: each male swims around his chosen one, as if demonstrating readiness for breeding. It is noted that at these moments the shell of the male in the chest area is painted in a dark color. Bowing his head, he moves in circles around the female, with his tail slightly touching the bottom.

But what about the female? She reacts to such behavior of the male - she starts spinning around herself after the male, but does not move from her place. During the breeding season, the greeting ritual is repeated every morning. Having completed this peculiar dance, the couple begins to "breakfast". The fish remain in a limited area and try to keep each other in sight. The closer the moment of mating is, the longer the greeting ritual becomes and can even last all day.

In temperate latitudes, male seahorses inflate their leathery pouch during the breeding season so that the skin is strongly stretched and becomes almost white.

Mating and brooding

We continue to explore the process of how seahorses reproduce, and how mating occurs:

For mating, it is necessary that the male and female mature at the same time.
On the day of mating, during the greeting ritual, at a certain moment, the female abruptly raises her head and swims up.
The male follows her. At this moment, the ovipositor is clearly visible in the female, the pouch opens wide in the male.
The female directs the ovipositor into the wide opening of the bag and lays eggs there.
The process of spawning occurs in several stages, each lasting a few seconds. The female lays her eggs until the bag is full (more than 600 eggs can fit in it).

If one of the partners is not ready, spawning is interrupted, and the whole process begins again. The number of eggs laid usually depends on the size of the male and the type of fish. Different species for spawning produce from 30 - 60 eggs to 500 or more. For example, a long-snouted seahorse: an age 10-12 cm female can lay more than 650 eggs.

Let's talk a little about seahorses - males:

The readiness of the male for mating is also manifested in a change internal state pocket skin: from the inside it becomes like a sponge filled with blood vessels.
A large number of blood vessels on the inside of the bag plays an important role in the development of eggs. Takova amazing feature structures of male seahorses!

When the eggs are laid and the bag is completely filled with "priceless cargo", the future dad-horse floats away with an inflated pocket, becoming like a unique "live stroller" filled with cubs.

The birth of small hippocampus - seahorses

After 1-2 months, tiny fry are born - exact copies your parents. The male squeezes his offspring through a special hole in the bag. Pushing out the last cub, the daddy fish can sometimes experience very strong and tangible “birth pains”. Therefore, the birth of babies is a very exhausting process for a male.

Immediately after birth, seahorse fry become independent, because they do not receive any help from their parents. They begin to feed immediately after leaving the bag. Different species have different strategies of behavior: the fry of some species move with the flow, while others remain in the birthplace.

Are seahorses monogamous?

For a long time it was believed that seahorses are monogamous - they mate with one permanent partner.

Probably the first naturalists who observed this behavior in one or two species concluded that this is characteristic of all seahorses. Over time, observations by both amateur aquarists and ichthyologists proved that this is a myth. Seahorses are not monogamous at all.

British ichthyologists have studied the sexual behavior of seahorses of different species and have seen that individuals can “flirt” with 25 different partners during the day. For example, British spiny seahorses in only five pairs were faithful to each other, and twelve pairs were not.

AT home aquarium there have also been cases where a male took eggs from two females at the same time. It is likely that similar behavior during reproduction can be observed in nature too.

Signs of courtship in seahorses are: color change, synchronized swimming, tail interlacing.

Menu of seahorses in nature and in the aquarium

What do seahorses eat in nature? Their food is the smallest zooplankton (crustaceans). By type of food, they are ambush predators:

Having a camouflage camouflage, the fish, clinging to the algae with its tail, stands vertically in the water and tracks down its prey.
Noticing a crustacean, the skate examines it for a couple of seconds, rolling its eyes in a funny way.
Then he puffs out his cheeks, so high pressure is created in his mouth.
And immediately, like a vacuum cleaner, he pulls the crustacean into his mouth and swallows it.
Prey can be drawn in from a distance of 4 cm.

Seahorses feed up to 10 hours a day and can eat more than 3,000 thousand brine shrimp. In the aquarium, these voracious fish willingly eat shrimp, live and frozen mysids, artemia, daphnia, bloodworms. It is recommended to feed them daily twice a day, and the food should be varied. On some brine shrimp, skates may experience a feeling of hunger.

The place of the seahorse in the fish system, the Red Book and 2 hryvnias

Seahorses are small sea fish, ranging in size from 2 to 30 cm. They belong to the type of chordates, to the subtype of vertebrates, the superclass of fish - the class bony fish and a subclass of ray-finned fish, to the order of sticklebacks, the needle family, the genus seahorses. The closest relatives of seahorses are sea needles, in which the male also bears offspring.

Seahorses are currently on the verge of extinction. Many species are listed in the Red Book, for example, the long-snouted seahorse from the Black Sea. This skate is depicted on a coin with a face value of 2 hryvnias, which was issued by the National Bank of Ukraine.

The mass catch of these exotic fish for making souvenirs has led to their complete disappearance in the recreation areas of the Black Sea. And since 1994 Black Sea population This species is listed in the Red Book of Ukraine, and its capture is prohibited.

Seahorses are very popular with children. Bookmark the “Seahorse” with your child and, in the process of completing a creative task, study the features of the appearance of this amazing fish.

Any aquatic animal is of great interest due to its unusualness already in view of the habitat itself, which is not the same as in humans. Learn more about one of the types of marine animals - the seahorse.

Facts about seahorses

1. Fact mythological. The ancient Roman god of the seas Neptune himself, going around his possessions (as those who believed in him), harnessed seahorses to the chariot. The similarity of these fish of the needle family with horses has been noticed already in ancient times. However, the similarity is only external, and the size of seahorses is much smaller than that of land horses - a maximum of thirty centimeters.

2. Seahorses live in the tropics, sometimes subtropics. Contrary to the name, some of them have quite adapted to fresh water.

3. The main food of skates are shrimps and crustaceans. The mouth opening works similarly to a pipette, sucking in water along with the prey in it. The swim bladder of a seahorse is placed not according to the fish (horizontal) pattern, but according to the mammalian pattern - vertically. Accordingly, the body of the fish is always vertical. The head part of the bladder is separated by a wall from the rest of the body.

4. Beautiful and unusual shape the animal is mesmerizing ... but because of it, the skate cannot swim quickly. All that is available to him are elegant, graceful swims, in which he rows with his fins. To ensure their safety, skates have learned to deftly disguise themselves in algae and corals, clinging to them with their tail and freezing motionless.

5. In terms of the level of disguise, a seahorse can easily compete with a chameleon. It takes on any color, even black, even yellow. In addition, the fish's armor is so strong that it is not a trivial task to break it, even with mechanical tools.

6. But no beauty, no biological perfection saves skates from extinction. Almost all of their species have already appeared in the red book. And just elegant appearance caused a mass exodus.

7. natural beauty Seahorses are not enough for poachers - they still transform these fish by arching their tail so that it looks like the Latin letter C.

8. Oriental medicine actively uses the seahorse as a raw material for the manufacture of drugs against diseases of the skin and upper respiratory tract.

9. Despite all the efforts of the hunters, the seahorses managed to survive. They are helped in this by considerable fertility. Keeping a horse in captivity is very difficult, it requires a lot of small living creatures for food. Fry can eat food for ten hours a day, during which time more than three thousand shrimps and crustaceans are consumed.

10. These amazing fish live on Earth for about forty million years, and it depends on you and me that they survive as long as possible.

Many have seen these marine life on TV or in aquariums, but not everyone realizes how they can surprise Interesting Facts about the seahorse. These beautiful representatives of fish amaze with their unique properties. However, in wild nature very hard to watch them. Moreover, the number of seahorses has recently declined sharply due to the destruction of their habitats.

Seahorses are the only fish that have a neck.. Scientists have proven that seahorses are relatives of needlefish. True, during the evolution of their body has changed a lot. Unlike other fish, skates are located vertically in the water due to the fact that the swim bladder is distributed throughout the body. The S-shape of the body allows skates to successfully hunt from cover. They freeze among algae or reefs, and when a tiny larva swims by, they capture it with a turn of their heads.
Skates can ride "on horseback" on fish. Due to their curved tail, seahorses can travel long distances. They grab the perch's fins and hold on until the fish swims into the algae. And the skates grab their pair with their tail and swim in an embrace.
The eyes of skates move independently of one another.. The organ of vision in a seahorse is similar to the eyes of a chameleon. One eye of these fish can see forward and the second- to see what is happening behind.
Disguise Skates. To avoid numerous enemies, seahorses allow the ability to change color depending on the location. Just like chameleons, seahorses match the color of their scales to the color of coral or algae, making them almost invisible.
Seahorses have a great appetite. They don't have teeth, they don't even have a stomach. In order not to die, these fish have to eat constantly. With their proboscises, skates draw in plankton, small larvae and crustaceans. And it happens so fast that it's hard to track.
Almost no one eats seahorses. These small fish can become the prey of other predators, perhaps by accident. They are almost entirely composed of bones, spines and scales, so there are few hunters for them, except perhaps rays and large crabs.
Seahorses are stressed. Stress is often a mortal danger for seahorses. These fish do well in clean, calm water. Strong pitching at sea leads to the exhaustion of their forces. And with a sudden change of place of residence, they may even die. Therefore, it is difficult to breed skates in aquariums; in an artificial environment, they do not take root well.
The female chooses the male. We can say that seahorses have a matriarchy. After all, it is the females who decide which of the males to choose as a spouse.
Seahorses perform mating dances. For several days, the female performs a kind of dance together with the alleged chosen one, rising to the surface of the water and sinking to the bottom, intertwining her tails. If the male falls behind the bride, she will most likely leave him and look for another, more profitable party.
Male seahorses are "pregnant". If the female has chosen a suitable male for herself, then she remains faithful to him until the end of her life. It is to the male that she entrusts the gestation of eggs and care for the offspring. The female transfers the eggs to a special bag on the body of the male. There, future skates grow for a month and a half. And then they are born full-fledged fish. One male can simultaneously produce from 5 to 1.5 thousand fry. However, male seahorses still cannot be called pregnant. After all, fry are not born in their body, but only remain until full maturation. This is the function of protecting future offspring.
10
Skates are fragile, but tenacious. One out of a hundred born seahorse fry survives to full-fledged adults. This is a very high figure for fish. It is thanks to this indicator that seahorses have not died out so far.
11
The horse is on the coat of arms of the city of Zaozersk. For several years in a row on the coat of arms Russian city Zaozersk (Murmansk region) depicted a seahorse. The image was supposed to symbolize sea power Northern Fleet. But since seahorses don't live in the waters Barents Sea, the image of the skate was replaced with the image of a dolphin. It should be noted that seahorses are inhabitants of tropical and subtropical salt water bodies. And the largest seas of Russia are not included in this list.
12
30 types of skates are listed in the Red Book. And science knows only 32 species of these fish. There are several reasons for the extinction of seahorses. But almost all of them are related to human activities. In Thailand, Australia, Malaysia, skates are caught in order to dry and use as souvenirs. In oriental medicine, they are used to prepare medicines for asthma and skin diseases. In addition, the habitats of seahorses are polluted or completely destroyed by humans. And the plankton useful for skates is often eaten by jellyfish, which are beneficially affected by climate change.
Seahorses are a delicacy. A dish using the liver and eyes of seahorses is served in the most expensive restaurants in the world. These parts of skates are considered very tasty and healthy. The cost of a delicacy is an average of $ 800 per serving. And in China, fried skates are served on sticks.
14
Skates live on Earth for 40 million years. Despite the fact that fossilized seahorses are rare, scientists have proven that these fish have existed for several tens of millions of years. They appeared at a time when, as a result of tectonic shifts in the earth's crust, shallows formed in the oceans and algae began to spread.

We hope you liked the selection with pictures - Interesting facts about the seahorse (15 photos) online good quality. Please leave your opinion in the comments! Every opinion matters to us.

Avid aquarists like to breed a wide variety of exotic fish and bright, unusual animals that attract with their non-standard, bizarre proportions and interesting, sometimes playful behavior. And none, and even can not be compared with the brightest inhabitants of sea waters - seahorses.

The seahorse is one of the most outlandish representatives of the aquarium world. Despite their bizarre forms, all seahorses are included in the subgroup of bony marine fish, the needle-shaped order.

It is interesting! There are only one males on the planet who themselves bear their future offspring - seahorses.

Taking a closer look, you yourself will notice the striking similarity of these small bony fish with a chess piece. And how a seahorse moves interestingly in the water, bends all over and very proudly carries its superbly folded head!

Despite the apparent difficulty, keeping a seahorse is practically the same as keeping any other inhabitants of the aquarium world. But, before acquiring one or several individuals, one should take into account many factors, without which the life of this bright and interesting "sea needle" may not be as long as we would like.

Seahorses: interesting facts

The existence of the seahorse was known for a thousand years before our era. In ancient Roman mythology, it is told that the god of water flows and the sea, Neptune, whenever he went to check his possessions, harnessed to the chariot " sea igloo”, very similar to a horse. Therefore, for sure, Lord Neptune cannot be huge if he moved on small thirty-centimeter skates. And, seriously, it is very rare in nature today to find marine needle-shaped ones that would reach a length of 30 cm. Basically, “horses” barely reach twelve centimeters.

In our time, the existence of the fossilized remains of the ancestors of the seahorse is already known. In the course of a study at the genetic level, scientists have identified the similarity of a seahorse with a needle fish.

What are seahorses

Today, marine aquarists breed seahorses that range in length from 12 millimeters to twenty centimeters. However, most of all, aquarists prefer to care for hippocampus erectus, those. standard seahorses.

Seahorses were specially named so, since the head, chest, neck are completely similar to horse parts of the body. At the same time, they differ from fish in a different physique. The horse's head of these individuals is set in a completely different way than that of fish - in relation to the body, it is located at ninety degrees. What is even more interesting, these marine fish have eyes looking in different directions.

And these small, cute little sea creatures swim not horizontally, but vertically and have scales all over their bodies, strong armor- bone colorful, iridescent plates. The shell of these marine needle-shaped specimens is "steel" that it cannot be pierced.

I would also like to mention interesting property curled, long ponytail sea fish in the form of a spiral. If seahorses feel that a predator is nearby, they very quickly run away to shelter, algae, which they skillfully cling to with their spiral tail and manage to hide.

It is interesting! Feeling that danger is imminent, marine fish - skates cling to corals or algae with their long tails and remain for a long time motionless, hanging upside down.

Despite such a cute appearance, seahorses are classified as predatory fish, as they feed on shrimp and marine crustaceans.

The seahorse has the ability to camouflage itself. They mimic like chameleons, taking on the color of the place where they stop. Basically, these marine fish like to hide where there are more saturated, bright colors in order to avoid encountering predators. And with the help of bright colors, the male attracts the attention of the female, which he really liked. To please the female, he can even “put on” her color.

Seahorses, despite their numbers, are considered rare fish, so their thirty subspecies are listed in the Red Book. The problem is that from year to year the world ocean turns into a universal polluted, garbage "dump", because of which corals and algae die en masse, and these photosynthetic organisms have vital importance for seahorses.

And yet, the seahorse itself has long been a valuable animal. The Chinese fish these fish en masse, as they believe that they treat any disease. In many European countries dead seahorses automatically become raw materials for the manufacture of various souvenirs.

Keeping seahorses at home

Sea bony horses are unusual, bright, funny and very beautiful creatures. Maybe, feeling their beauty and grandeur, they are very “naughty” when they fall into captivity. And to make these fish feel good, even experienced aquarists should try very hard. For them must be created natural environment habitats, so that the animals feel there in the same way as in sea water. It is very important to follow temperature regime aquariums. Seahorses will feel comfortable in cool water with a temperature of twenty-three to twenty-five degrees Celsius, but no more. In a hot period, be sure to install a split system above the aquarium, you can simply turn on the fan. From hot air, these little creatures can suffocate even in warm water.

Before placing purchased skates in an aquarium with ordinary water, check its quality: it should not contain phosphates or ammonia. The maximum concentration of nitrates in water is allowed at ten ppm. Also, don't forget to install your favorite seahorse algae and corals in the aquarium. Surface grottoes made of artificial material will also look beautiful.

So, you have taken care of the seahorse house. It will also be important for them to take care of nutrition, because these beautiful inhabitants seas love to eat meat and exotic often and a lot. On the day, the seahorse should eat at least four to five times, getting the meat of shrimp and crustaceans. To do this, you can buy frozen invertebrate molluscs and crustaceans. Seahorses love Mysis shrimp and will happily eat moths and even daphnia.

All seahorses suffer from limited gas exchange due to poor performance of the gills. That's why constant water filtration and oxygen supply is vital necessary process for seahorses.
Seahorses do not have stomachs, so in order to keep themselves healthy and not lose energy balance they need a lot of food.
Seahorses do not have scales, which is why they easily succumb to any infection, especially bacterial ones. An ecosystem moderator in an enclosed space should frequently inspect the seahorse's torso, which may be damaged.
Seahorses have interesting mouths - proboscis, with the help of which these creatures suck in caught prey at such a speed that they can swallow a dozen spineless mollusks at a time.

seahorse breeding

Seahorses are skillful gentlemen! They begin their courtship with a courtship dance, which they demonstrate to the female. If everything worked out, the fish touch each other, wrap themselves around and look closely. This is how seahorses get to know each other. After numerous "hugs", the female begins to throw a large army of caviar into the male's purse with the help of her sexual nipple. Transparent fry of the seahorse are born after 30 days in an amount of from twenty to two hundred individuals. The fry are born - males!

It is interesting! In nature, there is a subspecies of males of an outstanding seahorse, capable of carrying over a thousand fry.

It is noteworthy that it is very difficult for a male seahorse to give offspring, after giving birth, after a day or even two, he rests for a long time at the bottom of the reservoir. And only the male, not the female, takes care of her babies for a long time, which, in case of imminent danger, can again hide in their father's brood pouch.

Seahorse Aquarium Neighbors

Seahorses are unpretentious and mysterious animals. They can easily get along with other fish and invertebrates. For them, only small fish, very slow and cautious, are suitable as neighbors. Such neighbors for skates can be fish - gobies and blennies. Among the invertebrates, one can single out the snail - an excellent aquarium cleaner, as well as not stinging corals.

It is also possible to place live stones in aquariums with sea needles, the main thing is that they are completely healthy and are not pathogens.

Where to buy a seahorse

In any online store of aquariums and pet stores, there are live pictures and photos of different types of seahorses that will help you choose the most ideal option.

It is here or in any pet store in your city that you can buy a seahorse at the best prices. In the future, many pet stores offer significant discounts for their regular customers, ranging from 10% or more when ordering a batch of seahorses.