Sea horse (hippocampus)

Introduction:

Seahorse is the title given to 54 species of marine fish in the genus Hippocampus. "Hippocampus" comes from the ancient greek hippos meaning "horse" and kamposmeaning "sea monster"


Habiat:

Seahorses are mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world, and prefer to live in sheltered areas such as sea grass beds,estuaries, coral reefs, ormangroves. In Pacific waters from North America to South America there are four species. In the Atlantic, the h.erectus ranges from nova scotia to uruguay. h.zosterai, known as the dwarf seahorse, is found in the bahamas.

Colonies have been found in European waters such as the thamus estuary.Three species live in the mediteranan sea h.guttulatus (the long-snouted seahorse),h.hippocampus (the short-snouted seahorse) and h.fuscus (the sea pony). These species form territories; males stay within 1 square meter (11 sq ft) of their habitat while females range about one hundred times that.

Sea horse life cycle:

Reproduction:

e is equipped with a brood pouch on the ventral, or front-facing, side of the tail. When mating, the female seahorse deposits up to 1,500 eggs in the male's pouch. The male carries the eggs for 9 to 45 days until the seahorses emerge fully developed, but very small. Once the seahorses are released into the water, the male's role is done and he offers no further care and often mates again within hours or days during the breeding season.
The male seahors

Birth:

The number of young released by the male seahorse averages 100–1000 for most species, but may be as low as 5 for the smaller species, or as high as 2,500. When the fry are ready to be born, the male expels them with muscular contractions. He typically gives birth at night and is ready for the next batch of eggs by morning when his mate returns. Like almost all other fish species, seahorses do not nurture their young after birth. Infants are susceptible to predators or ocean currents which wash them away from feeding grounds or into temperatures too extreme for their delicate bodies. Less than 0.5% of infants survive to adulthood, explaining why litters are so large. These survival rates are actually fairly high compared to other fish, because of their protected gestation, making the process worth the great cost to the father. The eggs of most other fish are abandoned immediately after fertilization.



Use in china medicine:

Seahorse populations are thought to have been endangered in recent years by overfishing and habitat destruction. The seahorse is used in traditional Chinies herbalogy, and as many as 20 million seahorses may be caught each year and sold for this purpose. Medicinal seahorses are not readily bred in captivity as they are susceptible to disease, and it is believed that they have different medicinal properties from aquarium seahorses. Seahorses are also used as medicines by the Indonesians, the Central Filipinos, and many other ethnic groups.

Import and export of seahorses has been controlled under cites since 15 May 2004. However,indonesia, japan, norway, and South korea have chosen to opt out of the trade rules set by CITES.

The problem may be exacerbated by the growth of pills and capsules as the preferred method of ingesting medication. They are cheaper and more available than traditional, individually tailored prescriptions of raw medicinals, but the contents are harder to track. Seahorses once had to be of a certain size and quality before they were accepted by TCM practitioners and consumers. Declining availability of the preferred large, pale and smooth seahorses has been offset by the shift towards prepackaged medicines, which make it possible for TCM merchants to sell previously unused juvenile, spiny and dark-coloured animals. Today almost a third of the seahorses sold in China are prepackaged, adding to the pressure on the species.

Dried seahorses retails from US$600 – 3000 per kilogram with larger, paler and smoother animals commanding the highest prices. In fact, in terms of value based on weight seahorses retail for more than the price of silver and almost that of gold in Asia. (UNEP,2004)