Seahorse

The fish whose dad gives birth

The seahorse is a fish with a horse's head, a monkey's tail and a kangaroo's pouch! Most amazing: the **dad** gives birth. The mum puts her eggs into a pouch on the dad's belly, he carries them for 3 weeks and 'gives birth' to up to 1,000 tiny seahorses. Seahorses swim very slowly — 1.5 metres an hour! Their eyes move separately, like a chameleon's.

The seahorse (Hippocampus, 46 species) is a bony fish (2–35 cm) of warm shallow seas, living among seagrass and corals. Instead of scales it has bony plates; it swims upright, its dorsal fin beating 35 times a second — one of the slowest fish (the dwarf seahorse: 1.5 m an hour). It has the only male pregnancy in the world: the female deposits eggs in the male's pouch, he fertilises them, supplies oxygen and nutrients, and after 2–4 weeks 'gives birth' to 100–2,000 fry. Pairs perform a greeting 'dance' every morning and stay together for life. It hides by changing colour. 20 million are caught each year for traditional medicine and souvenirs — many species are threatened.

Fun facts

• The seahorse is the only creature in the world where the male gets pregnant.
• The dwarf seahorse swims 1.5 m an hour — the slowest fish.
• Seahorse pairs greet each other with a dance every morning.