The mating habits of these bizarrely beautiful creatures are fascinating – they are the only species in which males truly become pregnant. We reveal the secrets of the sea bed, plus how to keep seahorses as pets
Peer at a seahorse, briefly hold one up to the light, and you will see a most unlikely creature; something you would hardly believe was real were it not lying there in the palm of your hand. Should we presume these odd-looking creatures were designed by a mischievous god who had some time on her hands? Rummaging through a box labelled "spare parts", she finds a horse's head and, feeling a desire for experimentation, places it on top of the pouched torso of a kangaroo.
This playful god adds a pair of swivelling chameleon eyes and the prehensile tail of a tree-dwelling monkey for embellishment – then stands back to admire her work. Not bad, but how about a suit of magical colour-changing armour, and a crown shaped as intricately and uniquely as a human fingerprint? Shrink it all down to the size of a chess piece and the new creature is complete.
No matter how tempting such a strange tale of creation may be, seahorses are real creatures, a product of natural selection and an endangered species. They inhabit a wide stretch of the oceans and are not, as we might suppose, restricted to warm azure waters that lap on equatorial shores. If you stand with your toes dabbling in shallow sea almost anywhere in the world there is a chance you might see a seahorse. Not a very great chance, admittedly, but a chance nonetheless.
Right now, somewhere in the world, sunbeams pierce through shallow water and cast pools of brightness on the seagrass meadow below. The night shift has ended, and diurnal creatures begin to emerge from sleeping hideaways: rabbitfish, parrotfish, damselfish.
Suddenly, two tiny silhouettes come together like a pair of knights on a chessboard. The seahorses greet each other with a nose-to-nose caress and, wrapping their tails around a single blade of grass, they begin a seductive dance, spiralling round and round each other. Blushes of orange and pink give away their emotions and, for a moment, the seahorses swim together, heads tucked down, tails entwined. A gentle humming and clicking from the male is the soundtrack to their flirting.
The first time a seahorse couple meet, this gentle courtship carries on for hours, days even, and it is a risky time. Driven by hormones that interfere with the instinct to hide, they abandon the camouflaged safety of their seagrass home. The female initiates sex by reaching up toward the surface, stretching her body as straight as it will go. This proves quite irresistible to the male, who immediately responds by pumping his tail vigorously up and down.
The couple halt in the open water column and hold their bodies close, forming a heart shape with their touching snouts and bellies. Their first attempt isn't quite right, so they break apart and try again several times until their position is perfected, the female just above the male. Then an extraordinary thing happens. A short hollow tube emerges from the female, which she pushes into an opening in her partner's belly. The couple raise their heads and arch their backs as the female shoots an egg-laden liquid into the male.
Copulation is perfunctory, taking just six or seven seconds. When the male is full with the precious cargo, he wanders off, his bright mating costume already fading. He sways and wiggles his body, settling the eggs into position where they will remain for the next few weeks, growing in a protected internal pond.
The strangest thing about seahorses is that their males are the only ones in the world who experience – firsthand – the agonies of childbirth. Admittedly, there are many fathers who do a great job of helping out with the youngsters. In eastern Australia's rainforests, tadpoles of the marsupial frog wriggle into special pouches slung on their fathers' hind legs. Six weeks later, out hop the next generation of miniature frogs.
These, and many other caring males – including pipefishes and seadragons – deserve praise for their efforts, but only male seahorses become truly pregnant, nurturing their young inside their bodies, providing them with food and oxygen, whisking away waste products. This is all the more remarkable when we consider that pregnancy is a rare occurrence in fish, even among females.
When people first hear about seahorse males getting pregnant, the question that naturally follows is, "So what makes them male?" The simple answer is sperm. The distinction between scarce round eggs and prolific tadpole-like sperm is essentially all that separates woman from man, doe from buck, mare from stallion, and so on.
Yet despite such a clear definition, it took marine biologists a long time to understand what was going on with seahorse sex. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle first wrote about the unusual reproductive habits of the Syngnathidae family, to which seahorses belong, in the third century BC. In his book, On The History of Animals, Aristotle went into extraordinary detail about the lives of many fish species he encountered while staying on the Mediterranean island of Lesbos. But it wasn't until the 18th century that scientists finally realised something strange was going on, and began to study syngnathid sex in detail.
For four decades, arguments flared over which sex carried the eggs during a seahorse pregnancy. Everyone agreed that the females produced the eggs, but it wasn't clear whether or not they handed them over to their male partners to look after. The academic tussle was played out on the pages of specialist journals, until the debate was finally laid to rest in the 1870s, when several scientists observed pairs of seahorses engaging in tight embraces within the confines of the laboratory. Those watching closely enough witnessed the transfer of eggs.
Females of most species make a limited number of eggs and tend to look after them well before they hatch, while males make torrents of sperm. This means that pregnancy isn't usually a great option for males. Why should a male spend time looking after a single brood of young, when he could be roaming around, fertilising many more broods elsewhere?
For mammals, there is only one contender for who is best suited to do the childcare: the female nurtures young inside her womb, leaving the male pacing about with few options to help except fending off predators, and bringing them food. Female fish, however, usually carry out external rather than internal fertilisation. So they can abandon their eggs to concentrate on feeding, in order that next time they make bigger, better eggs.
Male fish, on the other hand, can boost their credentials by hanging around. By claiming and defending a piece of prime territory, a male can look after several clutches at once and, in doing so, become irresistible to the ladies who prefer responsible, caring types to father their children.
When evolutionary biologists discovered that male seahorses become truly pregnant, they rubbed their hands in anticipation. It gave them a perfect opportunity to test out their theories of how differences between the sexes evolve. They expected to find that the females, unshackled from the toils of pregnancy, had kicked up their heels and adopted a typically male habit, spreading their gametes as far and wide as possible. But no, most female seahorses are loyal to one male throughout his pregnancy, and do not mate again until he is ready. In fact, many seahorses are monogamous throughout whole breeding seasons, returning to the same partner time and again. Some may even stay in devoted couplings for much of their lives.
So what benefits do females gain by abandoning pregnancy while at the same time sticking with one mate? The answer could lie in their rarity. Seahorses don't live in crowded neighbourhoods, possibly because their plankton food is too scarce to support more than a handful of adults in a habitat the size of a tennis court. With such limited social opportunities and meagre swimming skills, seahorses can't rely on finding a new partner every time they are ready to breed. As soon as they have found a suitable mate, it pays off in the long run for both males and females to stay together.
Equally, if males are unlikely to find a profusion of other mates, it isn't a huge sacrifice to settle down, be faithful, and become pregnant. And taking on the reins of pregnancy gives male seahorses one last added benefit: full reassurance that all the babies he is caring for are definitely his own – something other males, most notoriously human beings, can't be absolutely sure of without a DNA test.
And so, eventually, a cloud of transparent specks like a swarm of apostrophes is launched into the sea: a herd of miniature seahorses with huge snouts too big for their spindly bodies but with all the necessary features already in place.
The brand-new foals, each the size of a flea, swim upward, inflating their swim bladders with a gulp of fresh air before drifting away to begin life with no more help from father or mother. They will settle down in different seagrass patches and, after six months of feeding and growing, they will – all being well – find a partner and start a family of their own.
As for the fathers, their work is never finished. As soon as the arduous birth is over, the female returns and their courtship ritual resumes. The male may already be pregnant again by the next day – a tiresome life indeed, but one that maximises the output of offspring. Which is, ultimately, all that really counts.
Keeping seahorses as pets
Keeping fish is an inherently melancholic pursuit. There are no long walks to be had, no playing with balls of wool or soft fur to stroke. Tank inhabitants can put on a splendid display, but the pet-owner relationship is strictly one-way: owner to fish.
Keeping seahorses, though, seems to be a little different. These are pets you can get to know, and that will get to know you. Seahorse owners are convinced that each has its own personality. Some are show-offs, some are shy, some are affectionate, some put on airs and graces, politely waiting at meal times for their tank mates to join them rather than eating alone. Some are smart, some are lazy, some are head-butting bullies, and some are cheeky, snicking playfully at each other. Many seahorses are trusting, hooking on to their keepers' fingers while their tanks are cleaned; some are clingy, refusing food from anyone but their owners.
Such is the appeal of these fishy characters that seahorse-keeping has become a 21st-century craze, with many contemporary collectors matching the devotion of the most ardent Victorian naturalists. Virtual communities of seahorse keepers from around the world meet up online in chatrooms to exchange stories and tips, put baby seahorses up for adoption, show photographs, and ask questions. "Is my male sterile?" "Why won't they mate?" "Am I overfeeding them?" "What do I do with my new arrivals?" Keepers give their pet seahorses names such as Poseidon, Triton, Thrasher, Pacer, Charlotte, Sea Biscuit, Mrs Speckles and Fat Albert; they speak to them, sing to them, and cry when they die. And in return, seahorses take over lives.
Devoted keepers can't bear to be away from their seahorses who, like Goldilocks, must have things "just right": water temperature, light levels, acidity, nutrient levels and, of course, food. Holidays are forgone so keepers can be on hand to feed their pets. Seahorse stomachs are small and don't hold much food, which means they are almost always hungry.
They can also be highly sensitive, and are prone to a host of ailments and diseases. It is important to watch out for any signs of illness: laboured breathing, "coughing" of gills, blocked snouts, limp drooping fins, or itchy skin infections that need scratching on tank walls. A collapsed air bladder leaves seahorses lacking buoyancy and floundering on the tank floor, while males can get air bubbles lodged in their pouches, causing them to bob hopelessly at the water surface like ping-pong balls.
Indeed, seahorse owners will often keep an emergency hospital tank on standby, so that any sick horses can be quickly isolated and bathed in water-soluble drugs.
[link to www.guardian.co.uk] "do geese see god?"
"... lol, do your eyes need proof that they can see for to be able to see? "
gooderboy
Probably something lodged in your pouch... let me just give that a swift whack for you. Reminds me of the time my friend called me and told me to turn on the television fast, she was watching some weird wildlife show about the mating habits of wild pigs and was all too excited to share with me the photographic proof of their spiral-shaped 'pig-thang.' Which left me with two questions... 1) Why do all of these Marty-guy's shows feature weird animal sex habits, and 2) Is everybody in Texas as crazy as she is? This, in turn, leads me to surmise the following... 1) Gooderboy is watching weird Marty-guy reruns, and 2) Gooderboy is from Texas.
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