SEAHORSES

A seahorse is one of those underwater discoveries that is a delight for all divers, yet they are sadly one of the most threatened creatures in the marine world. With little in common with real horses, their genus, Hippocampus, is derived from the Greek ‘hippos' for horse and 'campus’ meaning sea monster. Adults range from minuscule pygmy seahorses to the one foot long Pacific Seahorse.

They live in both tropical and temperate waters amongst seagrasses, mangroves, corals and estuaries - the most threatened of all marine habitats. They have a small home patch with a central hold fast - a stick or sponge around which the seahorse wraps its tail. Although they don’t seem to defend this patch, they are faithful to it, and are regularly found on it or near by.

Generally they appear to mate for life - if one half of the partnership disappears, the remaining partner is slow to seek out a new buddy. Their most fascinating feature is that the males get pregnant! Females insert ripe eggs into the male's brood pouch and he produces sperm to fertilize them. The pouch seals shut until the male goes into labour, pumping and jack-knifing to expel the youngsters.

Sadly however, with their environments continually under threat seahorse populations are in decline. Apart from this destruction to their habitats, thousands of live seahorses are collected for the aquarium trade and many more go to traditional Chinese medicines, some of which are actually recognised by the World Health Organisation for providing a viable healthcare option.

The good news is that small-scale seahorse conservation initiatives have been established that recognise the needs of communities that depend on seahorses for income and medicines. Projects in the Philippines and Vietnam are experiencing initial success.

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