Seahorses are thought to be the only animal species in which the males bear their young. The female seahorse deposits her eggs into a pouch located on the front of the male, where he then internally fertilizes them. The male then stores the fertilized eggs in his pouch for about two to four weeks until they hatch and he squeezes them from his pouch. The freshly hatched baby seahorses then go directly from their father’s pouch to being released to swimming in the water. Male seahorses generally bear from 100 to 200 babies at a time, but can bear thousands at a time.
More about seahorses:
- Seahorses don’t have any teeth, so they use their snouts to suck up the 3,000 creatures—such as plankton, small fish, and crustaceans like shrimp—they eat a day and swallow them whole.
- Even though seahorses are named after the equestrian horses known for speed, they are actually the slowest swimmers of any fish species.
- All seahorses have patterns on the ridges of their foreheads, known as a coronet, which are distinctive for each specific seahorse.
