The Life of Animals | Big-belly | You hear the word horse may already know, there are two types of horses are divided according to their habitat, which is on land and at sea, this time the animals that we can see the sea horses, maybe you only know a few kinds of sea horses, sea horses sea horses this is a very attractive because of its beautiful and also pretty much the animal is used as an ornamental in the aquarium animals want to know? The following report
The big-belly seahorse has a forward-tilted, long-snouted head, distended but narrow pot belly, and a long coiled tail. It swims using its dorsal fin with a vertical stance - when not swimming it coils its prehensile tail around any suitable growth, such as seaweed, waiting for planktonic animals to drift by when they are sucked up by the small mouth set at the tip of the snout much like a vacuum cleaner. Seahorses are voracious feeders, eating mainly crustaceans, such as shrimps, and other small animals living among the seaweed such as copepods and amphipods. They do not masticate so they can eat to excess because of their small gut tract. Each eye moves separately making it easier for them to see food and predators.
It is quite easy to distinguish males from females. The male have a smooth soft pouch-like area at the base of its abdomen between where the stomach meets the tail on the front side. Males also have a fin here but it is less obvious. The female will have more of a pointed stomach with a very obvious fin at the base of the stomach. large-belly seahorses have a very intricate social life every morning, the female travels to her mate and they entwine tails and 'dance' together for six to 10 minutes, changing colour and promenading across the seabed. In wild seahorse populations, monogamy appears to be the rule rather than the exception. It is thought that such pair bonding is reinforced by daily greetings which are performed only with an individual's partner
If the female is not receptive she ignores the male, who then looks for another potential mate. If no females are receptive the male stops displaying and deflates the pouch by dilating the pouch opening and bending forwards, expelling the water inside. If a female is receptive to a courting male, she reciprocates with her own colour changes and head tucking, typically intensifying the lighter colours such as yellow and white, highlighting the contrast between these colours and their overall darker blotching and banding patterning. A series of short bursts of swimming together in tandem then ensues, sometimes with tails entwined, or with the female tightly rolling her tail up. This has often been described as ‘dancing’. After coming to rest, the male attempts to get the female to swim towards the water surface with him by repeatedly pointing his snout upwards.
If the female responds by also pointing her snout upwards then the final stage of courtship follows. This involves both males and females swimming directly upwards towards the water surface with both their heads pointing upwards and tails pointing straight down. If they reach the water surface, one, or both seahorses, can often be seen and heard to snap their heads. To transfer her eggs to the male, the female faces the male, slightly above him. Pressing the base of her abdomen against the male's pouch she then squirts her eggs through the opening in the front of his dilated pouch. The male seahorse can give birth to up to 721 babies at a time. Their colouring is a variable shade of brown, mottled with yellow-brown and with darker splotches. The tail is often circled with yellow bands. In deeper water where the tail is anchored to other colourful forms of life, such as sponges and hydroids, they often take on these colours.
