Seahorse Survey and Tagging Project :: OPCFHK (2024)

FAQs

What are some challenges for seahorses? ›

About 46 species, from little to large, live along the world's tropical and temperate coastlines. Seahorses are threatened by fishing gears, including bottom trawls and seine nets, that trap all life willy nilly. Seahorses also perish when we damage or destroy their lovely coastal habitats.

Seahorses are important predators on bottom-dwelling organisms and are, at the same time, preyed upon by invertebrates, fish, sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals. Therefore, removing them disrupts entire ecosystems.

Besides, species management by controlling the harvest and trade of seahorses is crucial to safeguard them. 150 countries in the world have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which prevents commercial trading of wild species like seahorses if their existence is under threat.

Seahorses are fairly simple to keep if they are housed in the proper type of aquarium system, kept with mellow, peaceful tankmates and offered the right sort of foods.

Hardy captive bred seahorses that are trained to eat frozen foods, on the other hand, are very much at home in the aquarium and are relatively easy to care for. More home hobbyists are able to breed and raise cultured seahorses such as Mustangs successfully than any other type of marine fishes.

Sea horse reproduce sexually by internal fertilisation. After fertilisation female spray or transfer her eggs in the males brood pocket via oviduct and then male keep them in pocket until they hatch and are capable of fairly active swimming.

Most wild seahorses (here the thorny seahorse Hippocampus histrix ) are monogamous and some species mate for life. Searching for mates can be difficult and risky since seahorses are poor swimmers, found in low densities and rely on camouflage to hide from predators.

Not only are sea horses cute as can be, but they also have “loving and romantic” all over their forehead. Seahorses find a companion that they'll stay with for life.

Seahorses also use their tails as protection from predators. When threatened, a seahorse's defense reaction is to tuck its head close to its body and tighten its tail-hold around an available anchor.

How can we save life underwater? ›

For example, we know that the Cape seahorse (H. capensis) is endangered, owing to the fact that its geographical range is limited to a few South African estuaries, where human activity encroaches on its habitat.

Seahorses need to feed almost constantly and in the wild are often surrounded by clouds of live mysis shrimp. If they go too long between feeds or have to expend too much energy swimming to and hunting for food, they can lose weight and slowly starve over the coming weeks.

The future of many species of seahorse are in question as pollution, habitat loss and accidental fishing are reducing their population. The biggest threat that seahorses face comes from unsustainable harvesting, especially for the aquarium trade, dried and sold as souvenirs and for use in traditional medicines.

Why are seahorses difficult to discover? For starters, they are some of the tiniest adult fish around. The average length of an adult seahorse is just 3.9 inches. The Satomi's pygmy seahorse, which lives near Indonesia and Malaysia, is the smallest seahorse in the world at only half an inch long.

However, this supposition had never been investigated. The laboratory experiments in this paper demonstrate that, contrary to expectations, seahorses exhibit conventional sex roles: male seahorses compete more intensely than females for access to mates, on both the first and final days of courtship.