Seahorses: Our Ancestors Never Knew

 

Seahorses: What I Learned At the Seahorse Farm, just north of Kona, Hawaii: 

·         Seahorses are found in every ocean in the world; there are 53 known species our tour guide explained.

·         They can be 2 to 11 inches long, depending on species; they can live 1 to 4 years, depending on species. They have no stomach or teeth; they feed by sucking in their prey through a tubular snout; they’re patient and just wait for something yummy to drift by; they swim by means of fluttering fins on their heads and back.

·         They don’t live long in captivity; one reason is that they are monogamous; this facility is trying to breed that out of them to help the species survive.

·         They are endangered for many reasons: some cultures revere them as medicine; the coastal seas where they live are becoming more polluted; the seas are warming; they are being harvested for pets; they are harvested and dried for souvenirs!!

·         This farm raises all species here to put back into the oceans of the world or to give to aquariums (preventing ocean harvesting).

·         They are bred to be hardier, prettier (!!) and “swingers” that will mate with others so for better reproduction and survival.

·         The farm keeps them in big tanks with waters like where they live (salinity, temperature, food).

·         The farm feeds them on teeny red shrimp (opi’ula) which abundantly grow in pools in the coastal Kona lava rocks where fresh water draining through the rocks to the ocean mixes just right with seawater.

·         The farm has a 50% survival rate compared with 1% in the wild.

·         Seahorses have no eyelids; each eye is independent; they can see up to 20-feet out of water.

·         The female deposits her load of eggs into the male’s special pouch where he fertilizes them and keeps them for a 30-day gestation; on “birthday” he can deliver up to 600 fry; once born, the fry are totally on their own; once a female sees that a male is “empty” she will “fill him up again.”

·         The fry are teeny, less than ¼ inch; at the farm they are kept in special tanks with just right water and temperatures and food and they grow fast…faster than in the wild.

·         While I didn’t get to touch or really feel one, I was instructed to make a “basket” of my hands with opened fingers touching and the helper put a seahorse to curl its tail around a finger. So cool.

Want to know more? There is a great article found online in Wikipedia.