Seahorse

Seahorse
 

News: Recently, a study indicated that extensive fishing off the Coromandel coast could be forcing the great seahorse to migrate towards Odisha.
 

About:
 The oddly shaped and upright-swimming seahorse seems an unlikely fish. Yet more than 45 species live in coastal waters around the globe.
 Its head may resemble a horse’s, but each seahorse has a look all its own.
 Colors vary and can change with the twitch of a muscle to offer camouflage or to signal a foe or potential mate.
 Seahorses are ambush predators: They hold still and wait for krill, copepods, fish larvae, and other tiny edibles to float by and then nab them with remarkable speed.
 Scientific name - Hippocampus
 

Habitat and environment:
 Preferring calm, shallow waters, seahorses thrive in seagrass beds, mangroves, estuaries, and coral reefs in temperate and tropical waters around the world.
 

How do they reproduce?
 In a reproductive role reversal unique to seahorses and others in the family Syngnathidae (which also includes pipefish and sea dragons), males experience pregnancy. During mating a female uses a tube called an “ovipositor” to place her eggs into the male’s frontal “brood pouch.”
 

Threats:
 Pollution and coastal development harm seahorses, but the top threat is rampant overfishing. Commercial fishermen scoop up millions of seahorses a year as bycatch.
 There is also targeted fishing of seahorses to supply tourist demand for dried trinkets and an unregulated traditional-medicine market in Asia.