Urgent: Seahorses

[Dr.Stein]

Hello,

I am planning to write a book about "The Uses of Seahorses (Hippocampus sp.) In Medicinal And Magical Aspects". This is still a tentative title. To be precise, it will be just a compilation of usage of seahorses from worldwide. So far I already have some references for it, but I need more and more to make it such a complete book, if cannot be a complete one, at least I hope it will be a good book 😉

If you are interested to contribute in this project, you can send me the articles here, whatever, textbook citation, journals, (scientific) magazine, or links are ok. Sooner, better. Your name (or nickname, because I do not know your real name) will be listed in the acknowledgment section, and I try that you will get the copy of the book when it would have done. Special thanks to this forum, of course 🙂

Thank you.

P.S. If you need more info about the topic of my book, feel free to ask me here 🙂

[Linn]

Are seahorses endangered?

[MrMistery]

I don’t understand what is it exactly that you need. Medicinal and magic uses of sea horses?! Give an example and maybe i can start looking through my magazines

[Dr.Stein]

The example of medicinal aspect is the use of seahorse for improving reproductive system, according to TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) (my current research).

The example of magical aspect is that some people use seahorse in animism, they believe that seahorse will keep their health and wealth.

[Linn]

sorry
guess Ill just look it up. 😆

[Dr.Stein]

quote Linn:

Are seahorses endangered?

IUCN placed it in the category "Vulnerable" of the Red List 😉

[Linn]

Dr Stein
What do you think of this article?

http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/covera … 021202.pdf

I am just wondering why you are writing this book?
Its an interesting topic

[Dr.Stein]

Ah! Thanks for your input. From that article I got these:

Medicinal aspect:
Seahorses use to treat:
1. broken bones
2. childbirth pains
3. impotence

Additional uses:
1. as decoration/ornaments
2. as jewellery
3. as toys (there are even such things as seahorse yoyos)
4. as aquarium fodder

Why am I writing a book for this topic? I am not sure what the reason is, I just listen to something sparks in my head, and yes this is quite interesting for me 😉

Thanks again for your contribution.

[Alish24]

mmm..I think one of my friends is studying on this subject in Turkey!!
I ll ask her for more information and ll send you..
hope it ll be useful for you!

[victor]

what I know that Seahorse is not one species with Horse..:lol:

[Dr.Stein]

quote Alish24:

mmm..I think one of my friends is studying on this subject in Turkey!!
I ll ask her for more information and ll send you..
hope it ll be useful for you!

Hey I would like to have a contact with her. We can do a project. Oh I love project 🙂 Thanks in advance 😉

[Dr.Stein]

quote victor:

what I know that Seahorse is not one species with Horse..:lol:

Smart guy 8) 😆

[Alish24]

I ll try to contact her and say her about you Dr. Stein..I think she had some projects in Blacksea and Mediterranean..meybe u ll be useful to each other 🙂

[Dr.Stein]

Ah ya, I like the word "collaboration" and "cooperation" 😉

… and "project" as well hehehe 😛

Thank you.

[victor]

Oh my god !!! I’ve just known that Seahorse is a type of fish…:lol:

[victor]

hey boss, maybe this link can help you…
http://www.seahorse.com/Frequently_Aske … medicine?/

[Dr.Stein]

quote victor:

Oh my god !!! I’ve just known that Seahorse is a type of fish…:lol:

Crazy 😆

Btw, thanks for the link. I’ve been there previously, they change the name now, it was Oceanrider.com 8)

[opuntia]

I don’t know if this is true, but today i heard in one of the Animal Planet’s shows, that the male sea horses are the ones that give birth to young ones…not the females, 😕 😕 😕 😕 😕
Dr.Stein, since you might already have collected a lot of information about sea horses, would you please help my curiosity to go back to sleep( 😆 ) by explaining what the female does if what i wrote above is true.

[Linn]

this was nagging my brain
because I remember reading about sea horses in National Geographic.
They have a few aritcles. use their search.
Here is one
🙂 from your stomping grounds:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news … horse.html
linn 😀

[February Beetle]

i think i saw the same show as you! the male carries the females eggs like on his tummy until they are ready to hatch. I think the female kind of places them there somehow, not like opposite fertilization. Thats what i think but i’m sure Dr. Stein could tell you a lot better than me!

[Linn]

I love seahorse. Especially that the male does all the work! lol
I get ticked off to think people make keychains out of them.
or grind them up for some sort of medicine. they do that with tiger testicles too. aphrodisiac u 👿 know
WE could get real good imitation sea horse key chains from China. 💡
linn

[opuntia]

Well, today, i read a full article about the sea horses and it consists of many information about them…i’ll post the article as soon as i finish typing it 😀

[Dr.Stein]

quote opuntia:

I don’t know if this is true, but today i heard in one of the Animal Planet’s shows, that the male sea horses are the ones that give birth to young ones…not the females, 😕 😕 😕 😕 😕
Dr.Stein, since you might already have collected a lot of information about sea horses, would you please help my curiosity to go back to sleep( 😆 ) by explaining what the female does if what i wrote above is true.

The female lays 200-1000 eggs and direct them to male’s brood pouch (like female mammal’s uterine structure) thru a pipe processed from her belly. The male will take care of them like a pregnant female at least for 10 days until they hatch. When they are hatching, then the male starts to jerk to release them out one by one, with similar contraction like when a pregnant woman is about to deliver her baby (ouch!).

During the "male pregnancy", the female supports him with swimming around him everyday, send greeting every morning and afternoon, change her skin color periodically, and sounds like "click…click" from her jaws. This is true, I am no kidding 😉

If you see their courtship…aww, it is so romantic. It could last until three days until the female store eggs in male pouch. One thing to admire, they are monogamous, means that when one dies, cught by fisherman or predator, or something else, the left one will stay alone. She/he will get a new partner after loooooooong time or they decided to be along for her/his entire life…awwwww they are so faithful to each other 😉

Here are some figures form my collection:

Male pregnancy

Mating seahorses

Dancing seahorses (courtship dance)

Which one is male? Female?

Faithful pair

Enjoy 🙂

[victor]

I’ve seen things about that "horse" also in animal planet and that’s why the categorized them as the most EXTREME male parents..:lol:

[opuntia]

SEA HORSES

The sea horse is one of the strangest creatures. It’s head is shaped like a horse’s and its tail curls like a monkey’s. It’s eyes are on stalks called " turrets", and each eye can be moved on its own – just like a chameleon’s eyes. Strangest of all, the sea horse has a pouch on its belly like a kangaroo’s. But it’s not the female taht has the pouch. The male sea horse keeps the female’s eggs in its pouch until they hatch.

What kind of an animal is a sea horse? Is it a mammal, like the horse and monkey are? Or is it a reptile, like the chameleon is? No, it is neither of these. The sea horse is a fish. It is a member of the pipefish family. Most pipefishes are long, thin creatures, shaped like pipes. Sea horses have many of the features of pipefish. Their bodies are ringed by ridges of bone. Their mouths are tiny openings at the end of tube-shaped snouts. They have fewer fins than most other kinds of fish. The fin on the back – the dorsal fin – is used for swimming. And they have a strange way of producing young.

During courtship between a male and a female sea horse, the male pumps water out of the pouch on his belly. The female puts her egg-laying organ, called the ovipositor, into the opening of the male’s pouch. About 200 eggs are laid. The eggs get fertilised by combining with the male cells inside the pouch. Now they can grow into young sea horses.

The mouth of the pouch closes. Inside, the fertilised eggs settle in the thick spongy lining. This lining is rich in blood vessels. Food and oxygen are carried in the blood vessels to nourish the eggs. Waste carbondioxide gas from the eggs is removed by the male’s blood. After four to five weeks, the young sea horses hatch. The male pushes the young sea hores out of the pouch one by one. After each ‘birth’ the male resets. When the pouch is empty the male is ready to carry the eggs of another female with which it mates.

In someways sea horses are different from other pipefish. They are shorter and fatter, and hold their bodies upright all the time. The head, then, is at right angles to the body. The tail of the sea horse is prehensile. This means that it can be used for grasping. Like some kinds of monkey, the sea horse can coil its tail around an object, such as an underwater plant, and cling for support.

The sea horse also swims in an upright position. It propels itself by a rapid waves of the backfin. This looks like a revolving propeller, and can beat up to 35 times a second. Yet they are not strong swimmers and cannot swim against tides and currents. They use their heads fro steering, and tail for moving themselves up or down.

Although it is a fish, the sea horse doesn’t have scales. Instead it has a hard covering like armour. Small pieces of skin stick from body and look like branches or horns. These make the sea horse hard to see as it hides among the seaweed and coral.

Sea horses are capable of a wide range of colour change, red, orange, yellow, green or brown. These colours seem to adapt to the colouring of the environment. But if the sea horse is kept in captivity the brilliant colours fade and become a dull grey-brown.

There are about 50 kinds of sea horse. They range in length from about 2.5 centimeters to 30 centimeters ( 12 inches ). All live in warm sees. Two kinds live off the Pacific coast of America. Several others live near the atlantic coasts of Europe, Africa and North America. And there are several kinds found in the regions between India and Australia.

Sea horses live in shallow waters near the shore, among the seaweed and other sea plants. Sea horses are "carnivorous" – flesh eating. They eat any kind of small sea animals, such as tiny crustaceans and very small fish.

Well, that’s the article i was talking about…. 😀

[Dr.Stein]

Similar to that I told you previously, right? 😉

Could you provide the source, please, my dear? Thank you 🙂

[opuntia]

Exactly, it’s just the same thing. 8)

😳 oh, i guess i forgot to write that 😳
Well the article was taken from a magazine called All about science, number 91.

PS: it’s quite an old one 😉

[Dr.Stein]

Don’t ever think that the old thing is meaningless… you know the fossil? Older, more valuable 🙂

[opuntia]

I know that, Dr. but i added it simply to let you know taht it’s not a very modern one so if you have never heard of it, you’d know why you didn’t 😉

Indeed, the fossils are valuable…i better go and dig my back yard and see if there is any hidden fossils there 😆 😆

[zami’87.]

Their relatives Sea dragons are on my favorite list

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[opuntia]

I thought they were a kind of sea horses 😕

[zami’87.]

quote opuntia:

I thought they were a kind of sea horses 😕

Not good in classification but.. yeah seahorses and seadragons belong to the same family Syngnathidae but from that point..found genus Phyllopteryx (seadragons) and genus Hippocampus (seahorses)…not 100% sure

Classification 🙄

😳

[Navin]

The sea dragons look so funky. Is the curls around its body a form of camouflage?

[opuntia]

yeah, they look like a branches, so it’d help them to disguise themselves.

[Linn]

hi Opuntia
thanx for the article.
Its nice to see such an interest. 🙂

[opuntia]

Well, it’s a pleasure to do that, besides i learned so many new things from that article 😀

[HowieJ]

For those of you who didn’t know that the seahorse male does give
birth to live babies – viviparity – don’t feel bad.

I had to do a presentation and a paper for yesterday, and I chose
the topic of the seahorse brood pouch and male pregnancy (and that
was in my title). I thought my presentation was ok, a little nervous
but at the questions time, one guy raises his hand and says
"so the male doesn’t really get pregnant does he?"

I wanted to bang my head against the wall. This is Animal Physiology,
senior level biology college course….
Ah well.

Anyway – what I was really curious about is what is your take on it
Dr. Stein? Are you going to suggest using seahorses for medicinal
purposes (since they already are exploited), are you unbiased, just merely
informing or are you going to take a conservational approach?

If the latter – check out ProjectSeahorse. I don’t know much about it
accept that it researches seahorses and takes a conservational approach.

[Author]

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