Have you ever wondered why male seahorses give birth?
Have you ever wondered why male
seahorses give birth?
- Have you ever wondered what a baby seahorse is called?
- Have you ever wondered how many baby seahorses are born at once?
- Have you ever wondered how long seahorses are pregnant?
We are all alive, and we are all mammals. This means we were all birthed from a woman who carried us in her womb for nine months. Seahorses on the other hand are a completely different story in every aspect. Seahorses are a type of fish, and they are one of the only two species of animals in the world in which the male gives birth rather than the female.
Seahorses in the wild mate for life, so once they have found their lucky baby momma they stay together till death does them part. While seahorses are dating they do a lot of dancing. This isn’t hinting towards any other action, they straight up wrap their tails around each other and dance in circular motions together anywhere between 1-3 days. At the end of the dance, if both of them mutually like each other they will decide to reproduce.
When every other animal in the world reproduces sexually, the male releases his sperm into the woman's uterus where it combines with her eggs to create offspring. Seahorses on the other hand reproduce by the female seahorse releasing her eggs into the male’s pouch. After releasing her eggs the mother seahorse leaves the father during the entire pregnancy, and then they will meet up after the children are released. Inside the pouch, the male fertilizes the eggs with his sperm then the fertilized eggs rest on top of his abdomen for 2-4 weeks. When human moms give birth to multiple children at once they are often put on bed rest during pregnancy to reduce the risk to both the mother and the children. Similarly, the entire time they are pregnant, male seahorses wrap their tail around a coral branch and remain sedimentary, very similar to bed rest.
When it is time to give birth to the tiny new seahorses, the father pushes out all of the newborns through muscular contractions. The pushing out/birth process takes on average only nine minutes. Every time a seahorse gives birth they can push out up to 2,000 babies at a time, also known as “fry”.
Giving birth to 2,000 fry gives the impression we would have an overpopulation of seahorses down in the deep blue sea. A sad but true statistic however explains otherwise. For every 1,000 seahorses born, on average only 5 will survive. As soon as they are released from the father’s stomach the fry are left to survive on their own and have no familial ties to their parents. Seahorses have such a low survival rate because they are so tiny. A seahorse's diet consists of plankton and other microscopic organisms. Since the fry are so small in size, they struggle to find organisms smaller than themselves to consume, ultimately leading to starvation. Since the fry are practically weightless, they are also easily carried away by the current and removed from their habitat. If the seahorse is lingering too long around the father after birth, oftentimes the fathers are so hungry they will consume the children they just birthed, so it is crucial the fries flee the birthplace immediately.
Once the fry have been released and the father has recovered from the strenuous birth process, he immediately goes on a hunt for his baby momma. Once he finds her they rekindle their relationship and catch up on everything that has happened since they last saw each other. Then will repeat the dancing, mating, and birth process multiple times as long as they are both willing and able throughout their five-year average lifespan.
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