What color is a seahorse

Seahorses are masters of camouflage and have the ability to expand and contract their pigment cells in their skin known as chromatophores. The same seahorse can display black, brown, gray, yellow, golden, beige, and other variations of color and pattern.30 дек. 2019 г.

Scientists have discovered that the tiny “Japan pig” is a distinct species of pygmy seahorse. Meet the Japan pig, a newfound species of pygmy seahorse discovered in Japan. Only the size of a grain of rice, these colorful creatures inhabit shallow waters and blend in well with the algae-covered rocks where they live.10 авг. 2018 г.

The Knysna Seahorse – hippocampus capensis, the rarest seahorse in the world. There are 30 to 40 different kinds of seahorses, but only five of these have been seen around the southern African coastline. The Knysna seahorse is the best known, and is the only seahorse that is endangered.

How long do they live? The natural lifespans of seahorses are virtually unknown, with most estimates coming from captive observations. Known lifespans for seahorse species range from about one year in the smallest species to an average of three to five years for the larger species.

It's normal for a female to deposit her eggs in a male when she becomes mature; no sex change is involved. Females may compete for males, which some observers consider a sex-role reversal.26 сент. 2017 г.

Two colour morphs exist in the wild: purple seahorses scattered with pinkish-red tubercles found on the coral Muricella plectana, and yellow seahorses with orange tubercles that prefer to hang around the similarly coloured Muricella paraplectana. ... "You never want to touch these sea horses," the team explains.21 нояб. 2015 г.

Seahorses change colour to mimic their surroundings when hiding from predators or prey (sudden, bold changes in appearance may even deter their enemies), and to communicate during courtship displays and territorial disputes.24 февр. 2018 г.

Due to the small size and vulnerability of the seahorse, the seahorse has numerous predators within its natural environment. Crustaceans such as crabs, fish, and rays are all common predators of the seahorse. Predator fish species such as the bluefin tuna have also been discovered with seahorses in their stomach.

Though unique in their care needs, seahorses are surprisingly easy to keep (and even breed) if they are maintained in the proper type of fish aquarium system, kept with appropriate tankmates, and offered the right kinds of fish food. Most of all, they can be extremely rewarding to observe and care for.16 нояб. 2018 г.

The seahorse father does not eat until several hours after he has given birth. However, if the babies are still hanging around him after that, they may become a tasty meal. That's right, males sometimes eat their own babies. It's tough being a baby seahorse.25 мар. 2018 г.

Seahorses make good pets for your saltwater aquarium, but there is a reason why you don't see them in your local pet store. They are challenging to keep alive. Before purchasing, you need all the information you can get. ... Pet seahorses are usually from one to three inches and will change color to match their background.15 мар. 2021 г.

These blazing beauties are very large, solidly built seahorses, and boast the sort of fiery colors rarely seen in other seahorses. Think rhapsody in red, for the flaming finery sported by these ruddy rarities comes in various crimson colors such as scarlet, rust, ruby, maroon, purplish and the whole spectrum of reds.19 апр. 2006 г.

Hippocampus kuda, also known as the common seahorse, estuary seahorse, yellow seahorse or spotted seahorse is a seahorse of the family Syngnathidae native to the Indo-Pacific.

Found in only three Southern Cape Estuaries (the Knysna, Swartvlei and Keurbooms Estuaries) the Knysna Seahorse is an iconic species for Knysna, South Africa and the world. The Knysna Estuary is among the most heavily used water bodies in South Africa.

Seahorses and their close relatives, sea dragons, are the only species in which the male gets pregnant and gives birth. Male seahorses and sea dragons get pregnant and bear young—a unique adaptation in the animal kingdom. Seahorses are members of the pipefish family.18 мар. 2021 г.

A POOLE fisherman has captured the largest seahorse ever recorded in the wild in the world. The whopping 34cm spiny seahorse was netted off the Dorset coast by Michael Bailey, who also holds the record for the three largest ever recorded in the British Isles.27 сент. 2015 г.

In asexual reproduction, an individual can reproduce without involvement with another individual of that species. ... Sexual reproduction in seahorses: Female seahorses produce eggs for reproduction that are then fertilized by the male. Unlike almost all other animals, the male seahorse then gestates the young until birth.

A yellow seahorse (Hippocampus kuda) © Rich Lewis / Moment / Getty

Many fish have the ability to change colour and do so for all sorts of reasons. Seahorses change colour to mimic their surroundings when hiding from predators or prey (sudden, bold changes in appearance may even deter their enemies), and to communicate during courtship displays and territorial disputes.

Like other fish, seahorses change colour using small, sack-like organs known as chromatophores, which are embedded in their skin. Each chromatophore contains one of three or four pigments. Expansion or contraction of the chromatophores via tiny muscles results in different colours being displayed with varying intensity.

Chromatophores are controlled in two ways: by the nervous system (when rapid camouflage is required for predator avoidance) and by hormones (during courtship and breeding). The latter causes a slower, more controlled change, often to a brighter, less subtle.

The changeable lined seahorse is an engineering marvel.

As evidence that nature is given to the occasional flight of whimsy, consider Exhibit A: the lined seahorse. The only seahorse native to the Chesapeake Bay, it’s a fish that doesn’t look like a fish, doesn’t swim like a fish, and, in fact, doesn’t do much swimming at all. With its long snout, mane-like appendages, and dangling tail, it has a distinctly, undeniably equine appearance. But also it can change colors dramatically, its eyes can move independently of each other, and that tail is prehensile, like an opossum’s, allowing the seahorse to cling to aquatic vegetation and underwater objects. In short, when it came to making the lined seahorse, it seems that nature—like a college student in the waning hours of a caffeine-fueled all-nighter—was feeling a little punchy and decided to have some fun.

And yet, for a diminutive sea creature—adults are typically 5 to 6 inches long—the lined seahorse is both a beguiling and intriguing subject of study.

At the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News, a captive breeding program has successfully created a self-sustaining population of lined seahorses to support the museum’s conservation, research, and education missions. In the wild, though, seahorses are not long-lived; to survive to a ripe old age of 3 or 4 years requires no little amount of sheer luck.

Lined seahorses give live birth, and it is actually the male that incubates the babies, in a marsupial-like pouch in its abdomen. As many as 200 or more juveniles might be born at once, forcibly expelled from the pouch in a series of contractions. At that point, according to Chris Crippen, the Virginia

Living Museum’s senior director of conservation and animal welfare, the baby seahorses are fully formed but tiny—less than a half-inch long—and can’t swim very well or hold onto anything, so they just float in the water column. The number of young that are born at once is so large, says Crippen, because the mortality rate is high; only a few might survive to breeding age. 

From birth, though, lined seahorses are already active predators. “They have to eat almost constantly,” explains Crippen, because they don’t have a stomach but rather a “through-gut” that requires a steady intake of food. They suck in their prey—mostly tiny crustaceans—through that long snout with a force so strong it makes an audible clicking sound, known as a “snick,” that, at the museum, “you can hear through the glass in the tank” when the seahorses are feeding, according to Crippen. In fact, he says, an indicator of a seahorse’s health is “how strong the snick is.”

Once they reach about a half-inch in length, the seahorses are able to begin seeking something to anchor themselves to with those prehensile tails, such as the eel grass that grows in the bay. “They stay hooked on something like grass or a sponge,” says Crippen. “You don’t find them swimming around in open water.”

To the extent that they do swim, they move about in a drifting manner, propelled with the delicate fluttering of a fan-like dorsal fin, making subtle steering adjustments with pectoral fins near their ears. In this manner, seahorse males and females—which, at least in some cases, are believed to mate for life—engage with each other in a pair-bonding courtship dance, a languid floating ballet during which the male shows off his “pouchability,” says Patrycja Lawryniuk, the aquarium curator at the Virginia Living Museum. “They dance up and down the water column,” she says, locking tails and even changing colors as they do. 

This last ability is one of the more intriguing of the seahorse’s unique qualities. With pigment in their skin, “They can change colors to match their surroundings,” explains Lawryniuk. Those colors can be remarkably variable; lined seahorses might display colors from pink to green to banana yellow and chocolate brown, according to Lawryniuk and Crippen. They also have appendages in their skin and on their heads that they can grow out or shorten to mimic the vegetation around them. “They react to patterns a lot,” says Crippen. 

And as for that prehensile tail? Unlike most animal tails, which are round, the seahorse’s, when viewed in cross-section, takes the shape of a square prism; in a recent paper published in the journal Science, an international team of engineering and materials-science researchers developed computer and 3-D printed models of the seahorse tail and determined that the structure gives the tail both greater grasping ability and crush resistance in comparison to a round tail. “Understanding the role of mechanics in these prototypes,” wrote the scientists, “may help engineers to develop future seahorse-inspired technologies” in fields such as robotics and medicine.

Seahorse-inspired technologies? Even in whimsy, it seems, there is genius. 

This article originally appeared in our April 2020 issue.