However, if the babies are still hanging around him after that, they may become a tasty meal. Of the hundreds of babies that the male gives birth to, only one or two will survive to become adults and have babies of their own. Hello, curious kids! Ask an adult to send your question to us. They can:. Please tell us your name, age, and which city you live in.
You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Skalkos believes the males provide that nutrition. Seahorses make male pregnancy look easy. Other fish species in the seahorse family, including pipefishes and sea dragons, may offer their own clues about the evolutionary origin of pregnancy as aquarium staffers try to coax them to breed in captivity. Matsushige has helped the aquarium breed 13 different seahorse species since The Birch Aquarium has sent over 5, of its seahorse offspring to other aquariums, which allows people to learn about seahorses without pressure on wild seahorse populations.
But only a handful of other aquariums have ever enticed sea dragons to reproduce in captivity. While seahorse males have a pouch and female seahorses eject their eggs directly into that pouch, reproduction is trickier for other members of this fish family. Pipefish, which look like seahorses that have been pulled straight, have slits, grooves and flaps on their bodies where the eggs nestle, instead of a pouch.
Once the eggs attach to the tail, Matsushige says, the tail skin swells, forming little cups in which the eggs are secured.
But for years at the Birch Aquarium, eggs were never successfully transferred from the females to the males. Because of their many colors and their leaf-like appendages, many people think sea dragons are a tropical fish, Matsushige says.
Of those three species, only weedy sea dragons have reproduced in aquariums. Large litters are necessary because only about 0.
Many, if not all, of the 47 known seahorse species—14 of which were identified only in the 21st century—are in decline worldwide.
Because seahorses generally live in shallow, near-coastal waters, human activities including development, pollution, fisheries, and traditional medicine have reduced their numbers.
At the same time, their universal appeal has worked against them; until recently, wild seahorses were often captured for the aquarium trade. Anderson said other members of the family Sygnathidae, to which these three fish belong, have a number of different types of enclosed areas on their bodies in which to hold eggs; these spaces range from a flat spot to a trough, suggesting how a pouch may have evolved.
Scientists are not sure what evolutionary advantage male pregnancy gives seahorses. One theory is that it enables a shorter cycle of reproduction by distributing the costs of the process between the two partners. While the male is bearing the young, the female can prepare more eggs to implant soon after the male has given birth to the last litter. Anderson said some seahorses can give birth in the morning and be pregnant again by evening. Aquariums have only recently developed the technology to raise seahorses in captivity, according to Scarratt.
The main challenge has not been getting the seahorses to breed, but to help the fry survive, she explained. The infant seahorses are so small they cannot eat most of the tiny plankton that are fed to the adults. Special food has to be grown so the fry do not starve. The Seahorse Breeding Lab at the National Aquarium in Baltimore has raised eight species of seahorses and three species of pipefish. Populations of these fishes have been sent to institutions in the United States and Portugal.
All rights reserved. Male Contractions The male seahorse has a pouch on its stomach in which to carry babies—as many as 2, at a time. Cutting the Ties While seahorse dads go the extra mile to give birth, the parents do not provide their tiny offspring with any care or protection after they are born. Breeding Difficulties Although seahorses are the only fish that experience true male pregnancy, the males of two close relatives, sea dragons and pipefish, carry eggs attached to an area beneath their tails.
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