A male seahorse was caught on camera giving birth to hundreds of offspring in a video that has gone viral recently.
The male seahorse is equipped with a brood pouch on the ventral, or front-facing, side of the tail. When mating, the female seahorse deposits up to 1,500 eggs in the male’s pouch. The male carries the eggs for 9 to 45 days until the seahorses emerge fully developed, but very small. The young are then released into the water.
This particular dad gave birth to an estimated 300 babies.
A seahorse (also written sea-horse and sea horse) is any of 46 species of small marine bony fish in the genus Hippocampus. “Hippocampus” comes from the Ancient Greek hippókampos (ἱππόκαμπος), itself from híppos (ἵππος) meaning “horse” and kámpos (κάμπος) meaning “sea monster” or “sea animal”.
Having a head and neck suggestive of a horse, seahorses also feature segmented bony armor, an upright posture and a curled prehensile tail.
Seahorses live in the tropics and temperate zones, among seagrass beds and coral reefs. They’ll even live in human-made areas such as marinas and harbors. These places are full of tiny shrimp, their favorite food.
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A seahorse can eat up to 3,000 shrimp in just one day. Because they don’t have stomachs, food passes through their digestive system so rapidly that they must eat almost constantly.
A seahorse’s hunting technique is simple: They sit and wait until a shrimp comes by. The seahorses’ anatomy doesn’t let them swim fast. So, they won’t do much until the prey is right in front of their mouths. Then, they use their toothless trunk/snout to suck up the shrimp like a vacuum cleaner.
Before breeding, seahorses may court for several days
Scientists believe the courtship behavior synchronizes the animals’ movements and reproductive states, so that the male can receive the eggs when the female is ready to deposit them.
During this time, they may change color, swim side by side holding tails or grip the same strand of sea grass with their tails, and wheel around in unison in what is known as a “predawn dance”.
Most seahorses are monogamous and mate for life. And all species of seahorse mate with only one individual per breeding cycle. You can often see seahorses swimming in pairs with their tails linked together.
Some scientists think males carry the embryos so that females can be free to start making more eggs right after they deposit them in the males’ pouches. Since only 0.5% of baby seahorses survive until they become reproductive adults, time and quantity are crucial factors.
Once the male has finished the task of giving birth, the newborns have to get by on their own. Like their parents, they also go hide and try to eat microorganisms that pass by in the current.
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