Seahorse Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Seahorse - Essay ExampleNowadays genus Hippocampus counts almost 20 species, including Hippocampus ingens (dwelling in Pacific ocean), Hippocampus reidi (longsnout seahorse), Hippcampus erectus (Northern seahorse), Hippocampus kuda (the yeallow seahorse) and many others.Despite previous taxonomic classifications as insects and amphibians, they are seek, cousins to pipefish and sea dragons, from the family Syngnathidae, Greek for fused jaws. Like most fish they have gills for breathing, a swimbladder for buoyancy, two pectoral fins for balance, and dorsal fins that flutter as much as 35 times per second (Arrigoni, 1989, p.358). As one can see at the picture below, seahorses have no teeth, caudal fin for speed and stomach, as the last part is replaced in seahorse morphology by enormous tail, used for great speed development.In spite of their beauty and grace, seahorses serve as the Frankensteins of submersed society, as they are apparently made of various animals body parts. As their name shows, seahorses have upright piano body and horses head, situated perpendicularly to the body. Furthermore, seahorse has a kind of crown on its head, and what is most fearsome about this body part is the fact that this coronet is as unique as human DNA (Lourie et al, 1999).In addition, their body armor is quite... Their snout and body armor resemble an aardvarks.In terms of their ability to tilt coloration, seahorses resemble chameleons, as they also mimicre in accordance with the environment colors. Also with lizards, they share independently moving eyes, assisting both survival and predation tactics. Theyve borrowed prehensile tails from monkeys, and made a major alteration to the drove pop out of marsupials, with male seahorses nurturing their young (Lourie et al, 1999, p.231).(from Long, 1995, p.192)As for the reproduction and prenatal demeanor, seahorses are distinguished due to the unusual behavior of male individuals, or so-called mating rituals, which are typica lly attributed to the animal classes as well as to some fish species. Moreover, male individuals usually carry and accept fertilized eggs to order to extort brood in future, as both females and females have prolactin, the hormone that allows this form of hermaphroditic reproduction (Arrigoni, 1989). Individuals reach intimate maturity by the next pedigreeing season following birth, at the ripe age of cardinal months to a year, depending on size of the species. Breeding seasons vary by species and may be restricted by cooler weather or monsoons, though some go year-round (ibid, p.188). In particular, H. ingens is able to breed at 12 months, and it is important to note that couples are monogamous as a rule. During the breeding season, span bonds are encouraged by daily greetings, when individuals prepare an entire performance for each other change colors, dance and then promenade together by entwining their tails. Furthermore, the female individual puts its oviopositor into the mal es brood pouch in order to transmit