Coming up, a deep dive into Seahorses and Pipefish.
But what’s a pipehorse?
You’ll be an expert!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World.
The seahorse.
It’s one of the most mysterious animals in the ocean.
Few people have ever seen one in person.
And for scuba divers, finding one of these cryptic camouflaged fish on a dive is considered
grounds for bragging rights.
Seahorses are contained within the sub-family Hippocampinae, which loosely translated from
ancient Greek means “Horse-like Sea Monster.”
And while they certainly have a horse-like head, monster is a bit of a stretch, considering
that most seahorses are only a few inches tall, and the largest one in the world is
only a tad over a foot tall.
Seahorses are part of a family of fish called Syngnathidae which means “fused jaws.”
This family of fish includes not only the seahorses but similar fishes known as pipefish.
The fused jaw means that seahorses and pipefish can’t open their mouths very wide.
If I were a seahorse, I would have a hard time eating a sandwich.
Get in my belly!
Seahorses and pipefish all have fused jaws, elongated snouts, a lack of pelvic fins and
a body covered in thick bony plates, making them somewhat unappetizing to predators.
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Pipefish in general kind of look like eels with a seahorse head.
They come in all colors and have become quite specialized for their environments.
For example, the Robust Ghost pipefish has evolved to mimic sea grass.
It floats within the sea grass undetected until it can grab some prey like a tiny shrimp
or copepod.
The Ornate Ghost pipefish has frilly projections that make it look a little like a feather
star.
It can camouflage easily among feather stars while waiting for prey.
There is even a remarkable pipefish that looks exactly like Halimeda algae.
While pipefish tend to be swimmers, seahorses have mostly become adept at not swimming.
They have a prehensile tail for hanging on to things and staying very still to avoid
detection.
Some seahorses have taken camouflage to a very high degree of sophistication.
The pygmy seahorse, only a centimeter tall, looks just like the sea fan in which it lives.
If it doesn’t move, it’s almost impossible to find.
A large sea fan may host a dozen or more of these tiny inhabitants, but predators swim
right by and never know they are there.
In Australia, the Leafy Seadragon has made itself almost invisible within seaweed with
its stunning camouflage.
And while this fish definitely looks like a seahorse, Seadragons are actually more closely
related to pipefish.
The Weedy Seadragon, also found around Australia, definitely looks more like a pipefish than
a seahorse.
And another member of the family, which defies easy classification: the pygmy pipehorse,
which looks like a cross between a seahorse and a pipefish.
But the taxonomy experts tell us they are pipefish that look like seahorses, not seahorses
that look like pipefish.
All seahorses and pipefish share one reproductive trait: the males care for the eggs.
Most fish just release their eggs into the water and leave their fate to chance.
But seahorses and pipefish protect the eggs until they hatch, giving their babies a little
better chance to survive.
Because the female expends a lot of energy making the eggs, it’s only fair that the
male spends his energy protecting them.
Some pipefish males carry their eggs around on their body until they hatch.
But other pipefish and the seahorses actually have a little pouch, like a kangaroo, where
the eggs stay safe until they hatch.
When they start hatching it must tickle, because the proud father immediately pushes them out
into the world.
At this point, the babies are on their own.
No parental care or college tuition.
Because seahorses and pipefish can’t open their mouths very far, they feed in a special
manner called pivot feeding, where the seahorse snaps its head quickly, forming a small vacuum
in the mouth which sucks in the prey.
Occasionally a seahorse might literally bite off more than it can chew.
And sometimes the prey fights back!
While seahorses and pipefish are mostly found in tropical oceans, a few species can be found
into cooler, temperate waters.
For example the Northern Pipefish, found in the north Atlantic as far north as Newfoundland,
Canada!
I filmed this guy in Massachusetts.
Pipefish go back further in the fossil records than seahorses, and most taxonomists believe
that seahorses are the newest members of the family—basically highly adapted pipefish.
And a recent study on their genome indicates that seahorses are one of the fastest-evolving
fish ever studied.
So who knows, maybe in a few hundred years they WILL be sea monsters!
That would certainly make diving even more fun!
In the meantime, seahorses and pipefish are among the most magical and wondrous fish in
the sea, and certainly one of my favorite things to see on any dive in the Blue World!
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