Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey,
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Floor and Vogue Bomb. Here let's talk about
Speaker 1: sea horses from the growling, clicking, and purring sounds that
Speaker 1: they often make when greeting their mate to their piley
Speaker 1: monogamous nature, and there's much more to this distinctive and
Speaker 1: charismatic marine wildlife creature than its trademark horse like head,
Speaker 1: elongated mouth, and curly tail. For example, they're actually fish.
Speaker 1: They may not look like it due to their unusual
Speaker 1: anatomical shape and lack of scales, but they actually belong
Speaker 1: to the class of bony fish that includes salmon and swordfish,
Speaker 1: and the family affused jawed fish that includes pipe fish
Speaker 1: and sea dragons. All sea horses some forty four species
Speaker 1: are part of the genus Hippocampus, a combination of the
Speaker 1: Greek words for horse and sea monster. Sea horses do
Speaker 1: have many fiscal traits in common with fish, including swim
Speaker 1: ladders that keep them buoyant in the water and gills
Speaker 1: to breathe. Unlike fish, however, sea horses are clad in
Speaker 1: a strong suit of sturdy armor like plates and possess
Speaker 1: a tough bony structure that makes them difficult for other
Speaker 1: fish to digest, the result they don't have many natural predators.
Speaker 1: One of the most distinct species is the largest, the
Speaker 1: big belly sea horse, found only in Australia, with a
Speaker 1: maximum height of around fourteen inches that's thirty five centimeters.
Speaker 1: This source has a distinctively large belly that's especially prominent
Speaker 1: in males, and also has large dark spots on its
Speaker 1: head and trunk, making it easy to identify. Another distinct
Speaker 1: group are the smallest pigmy sea horses. They're less than
Speaker 1: an inch or two and a half centimeters in length,
Speaker 1: and they have an amazing ability to blend perfectly into
Speaker 1: their surroundings, which renders them almost impossible to find. Sea
Speaker 1: horses are the lowest moving of all fish species because
Speaker 1: the only way they have to propel themselves is by
Speaker 1: using the tiny fin in the middle of their back.
Speaker 1: This single fin can beat back and forth up to
Speaker 1: fifty times a second, but the size of the fin
Speaker 1: keeps the sea horse from traveling great distances, even with
Speaker 1: small pectoral fins that help them steer. Sea horses are
Speaker 1: known to be so delicate that they can become fatally
Speaker 1: exhausted when waters get rough during storms. However, they are dexterous.
Speaker 1: They're flexible tails allow them to anchor themselves to coral
Speaker 1: or seaweed when they need to rest. At times, they've
Speaker 1: even been known to wrap their tails around their mates
Speaker 1: so that they don't lose one another. This aspect of
Speaker 1: their anatomy also makes them skilled hitchhikers. They may not
Speaker 1: be able to travel long distances quickly alone, but linking
Speaker 1: themselves to floating vegetation can take them to all types
Speaker 1: of interesting destinations. And sea horses are unusual and that
Speaker 1: they not only can move forward, but also up, down,
Speaker 1: and backward. The shape of their heads also helps them
Speaker 1: glide through the water almost silently. Combine that with their
Speaker 1: ability to camouflage into their surroundings thanks to helpful chromatophores
Speaker 1: in their skin cells, and sea horses make great hunters,
Speaker 1: with a predatory kill rate of around But sea horses
Speaker 1: don't have teeth or even a stomach like other marine species,
Speaker 1: so how do they eat. Instead of a mouth that
Speaker 1: opens and closes like ours, they have a tube for
Speaker 1: a snout that they use to suck in all of
Speaker 1: their food like a vacuum. They eat pretty much anything
Speaker 1: small enough to fit through their mouth, which primarily is
Speaker 1: shrimp like creatures, baby fish, and other small organisms. And
Speaker 1: because they don't have stomachs, they have to eat constantly.
Speaker 1: Since they're slow swimmers, they don't chase their prey, relying
Speaker 1: on sneak attacks to catch a meal. And let's talk
Speaker 1: about that monogamy. Lots of sea horses stay with the
Speaker 1: same partner for one or more breeding seasons. Every morning,
Speaker 1: seahorse couples engage in ritualistic dances to greet each other,
Speaker 1: ving through intricate rhythmic sequences of twists and twirls for
Speaker 1: minutes to hours on end. They engage in these daily
Speaker 1: dances to strengthen their romantic bond, to ensure that their
Speaker 1: reproductive cycles are properly sinked, and to verify each day
Speaker 1: that their partner is both still fervently committed and alive
Speaker 1: after holding a complex cording dance. During the reproductive cycle,
Speaker 1: female seahorse lays eggs and then places them into a
Speaker 1: pouch of skin on the male's body that's known as
Speaker 1: a brood pouch. Then the male sea horse settles into
Speaker 1: an area to rest throughout gestation, which can last up
Speaker 1: to a number of weeks. It's finally time to give birth.
Speaker 1: The fathers go through a series of violent contractions that
Speaker 1: push out the teensy babies, which are about the size
Speaker 1: of grains of rice. They'll spend the first two to
Speaker 1: three weeks of their lives alone, drifting along in the
Speaker 1: plankton layer of the ocean. Less than one in a
Speaker 1: thousand will survive long enough to become an adult, due
Speaker 1: to predators that eat them. The sea horse was thought
Speaker 1: to have mystical significance among several ancient cultures. The ancient
Speaker 1: Greeks and Romans associated the sea horse with the sea
Speaker 1: god Neptune or Poseidon, so the sea horse was considered
Speaker 1: a symbol of strength and power, and some of the
Speaker 1: oldest sea horse stories tell of Poseidon galloping through the
Speaker 1: oceans on a golden chariot pulled by hippocamps beasts that
Speaker 1: had the head in front, hoofs of a horse, and
Speaker 1: a body and tail of a fish. It's thought that
Speaker 1: ancient Greek fishermen believed the real sea horses they sometimes
Speaker 1: found tangled in their nets were the offspring of Poseidon's
Speaker 1: mighty steeds. Other ancient European stories say that the sea
Speaker 1: horse carried the souls of deceased sailors to the underworld,
Speaker 1: giving them safe passage and protection until they met their
Speaker 1: soul's destination, and some ancient Chinese stories labeled the sea
Speaker 1: horse a type of seed dragon, and as such were
Speaker 1: considered symbols of good luck. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: article sea horses have Hotels plus nine other amazing sea
Speaker 1: horsebacks on how stuff works dot Com, written by Windy Bowman.
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