Sea Horse

sea horse

Sea horse (Hippocampus erectus).

(credit: Des Bartlett—Bruce Coleman Ltd.)

Any of about 24 species (family Syngnathidae) of fishes that usually live along warm seashores, clinging to plants with their forward-curled, prehensile tail. Species range from 1.5 to 12 in. (4–30 cm) long. Sea horses have bony rings instead of scales, and their eyes can move independently. They swim upright, propelling themselves horizontally with their fins and vertically with their swim bladder. They catch small organisms by sucking them quickly into their small mouths. The female deposits her eggs into a brood pouch beneath the male's tail, and the male expels the newly hatched young.

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sea horse

1. any marine teleost fish of the temperate and tropical genus Hippocampus, having a bony-plated body, a prehensile tail, and a horselike head and swimming in an upright position: family Syngnathidae (pipefishes)

2. an archaic name for the walrus

3. a fabled sea creature with the tail of a fish and the front parts of a horse

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sea horse [′sē ‚hȯrs]

(invertebrate zoology)

Any of about 50 species of tropical and subtropical marine fishes constituting the genusHippocampusin the family Syngnathidae; the body is compressed, the head is bent ventrally and has a tubiform snout, and the tail is tapering and prehensile.

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Sea Horse [′sē ‚hȯrs]

(astronomy)

Capricornus

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Sea Horse 

any one fish of the genus Hippocampus of the family Syngnathidae of the order Lophobranchii. The body, which resembles the knight in chess, is 4–20 cm long. There are approximately 30 species, distributed in temperate and tropical seas. Sea horses live near the shore in thickets of aquatic grasses and algae and among coral. Two species are found in the seas of the USSR: Hippocampus guttulatus microstephanus, which lives in the Black and Azov seas, and H. japonicus, which is encountered in the Sea of Japan. Sea horses feed primarily on small planktonic crustaceans. Members of other closely related genera are sometimes called sea horses.

REFERENCES

Nikol’skii, G. V. Chastnaia ikhtiologiia, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1971.
Zhizn’zhivotnykh, vol. 4, part 1. Moscow, 1971.