Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Subclass: Neopterygii
Infraclass: Teleostei
Order: Syngnathiformes
Family: Syngnathidae
Subfamily: Hippocampinae
Genus: Hippocampus
Interesting facts about Seahorse
- Each eye can move independently.
- International protection was provided to seahorses on May 15th, 2004.
- Seahorses differ in color, some are orange, red, yellow, green and even grey.
- Zebra stripes and spots, are two patterns that seahorses come in.
- A herd, is the term a group of seahorses are known as.
- Seahorses have an interior skeleton.
- Seahorses are unable to curl their tail backwards.
- Seahorses belong to the Teleost suborder or bony fish group.
- The average lifespan of a seahorse in the wild is estimated to be 1 to 5 years.
- Seahorses beat their dorsal fins back and forth to propel themselves through the water in an upright position.
- The pectoral fins are used to control steering and turning.
- The food that seahorses eat pass into their digestive systems very quickly as they do not have a stomach and teeth. As the digestion procedure in seahorses is so quick they need to constantly eat to live.
- Daphnia, cyclops, larvae or mysids are small living things that seahorses feed on.
- A seahorse that is two weeks old can consume 3000 to 4000 brine shrimp in a day.
- Seahorses have a single mate for life. Every morning, they come together, dance, change their color, twirl around with linked tails and then separate for the rest of the day.
- While mating, seahorses utter musical sounds.
- Mating is usually done under a full moon.
- Seahorses are the only animals in the entire animal kingdom in which the male has babies. The female seahorse deposits the eggs into the male's small pouch, these eggs are then fertilized by the male.
- These little creatures are at risk because about twenty-five million of them are being traded around the world, in a span of a year.
