Hippocampus, The Sea Horse

sea horse

        The seas have many strange inhabitants, but none more strange than the sea horses, tiny to small fish, found in the warm waters of our own and other continents.
       The Mediterranean Sea has long been noted for its large number of these peculiar fish, which were well known to the ancient Greeks. They watched the little fellows with flexible, horse-shaped heads and arched necks, as they rested upright in the water, tails wrapped tightly about a bit of seaweed, and named them, Hippokampos, from their word hippos‚ meaning horse‚ and kampos‚ meaning sea monster, or caterpillar. In those days, the Greeks used parts of animals in making medicines. One kind of ointment was made of sea¬¨ horse ashes mixed with oil, tallow, or pitch. It was applied to the skin of persons afflicted with baldness, canker, or leprosy. In some cases, it was used for mad-dog bites and taken internally. It was probably a bitter dose.
       For a long time, no one knew just what a sea horse really was. In an encyclopedia published about A.D. 1500 it was listed as Zidrach, a sea dragon. It certainly did not look like any of the fish known at that time. The gills were in numerous, small, rounded tuffs instead of flat plates, and in place of scales it wore an outer covering similar to that of insects. This outside skeleton was made of fifty or more hard, jointed plates of armor connected with each other and extending from the neck to the lower end of the body. Along the back were tiny shields arranged like tiles on a roof, forming a crest on the head, neck and back. These shields had either erect spines or fleshy, simple or branched filaments that waved back and forth. All these unusual features, and the fact that the tail was prehensile like a monkey's and was not used in swimming, seemed to place the sea horse outside the fish family. But what could it be? Many years passed before its true history was known.
       Today, these little fishes are no longer objects of mystery. Some of them live in large aquariums filled with circulating sea water containing living worms, shrimps, and other sea life. They soon learn to know their attendants and often wrap their tails about the finger of a person with a grip as strong as that of a small child.
       There are about fifty different kinds of sea horses. Several species are found along the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to the Gulf. One kind is common close to the city of New York. Its length is usually four inches, but a seven and a half-inch one has been captured. Florida boys and girls sometimes find the dwarf sea horse, which is never more than two inches long. The largest member of this family of fishes to be found near us is the foot-long sea horse of the Pacific coast, known as Hippocampus ingens. Japan and Australia also have large sea horses.
       These Neptune's Knights, as they have been called because they look like the knights in a chess game, live near shore in eelgrass or other marine plants. Usually they are colored like their surroundings, making it extremely difficult to find them. Sea horses that live among the corals and sponges are often marked with green, red, and silver spots.
       Few sights are more fascinating than a swimming sea horse. With head and body erect, tail coiled, pectoral fins (back of the gills) moving constantly to hold the balance, and the dorsal fin (on the back) waving rapidly from side to side, it makes its way through the water. First one bright eye rolls about in search of food, then the other, for the eyes work independently. Opening and closing the tiny mouth at the end of the long snout with a quick movement, the fish snaps at any prey in its path and swallows it without chewing. Then with a smacking sound the sea horse goes on to hunt for more. Should it desire to go downward, the neck is curved and the tail rolled in; for rising, it straightens itself out.
       Strangest of all, the male sea horse, as well as its cousin the male pipefish, has a pouch on the underside of the body. Into this soft, spongy pocket, or incubator, the mother sea horse pushes from 150 to 200 eggs. Soon the eggs hatch within the soft enclosure, and several weeks later the youngsters are hurled out of the father‚Äôs pouch to hunt their own homes and food. Margaret M. Cornell

The Pygmy Seahorse, pink and petite 

by The Departures Channel