• Question: why do male sea horses give birth ?

    Asked by 947hrtd24 to Cristina, Gemma, Loan, Michael, Praveen on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Gemma Barron

      Gemma Barron answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Hi @ 947hrtd24,
      Thank you for your interesting question. Although I knew that male seahorses gave birth, I wasn’t 100% sure why they did over female seahorses so, I had to look up my answer but, I hope it makes sense and it all has to do with an incubation pouch.
      So, after dating one another for a wee while, a female sea horse deposits her eggs inside the male sea horse’s incubation pouch. He fertilises the eggs inside his pouch. The incubation pouch keeps temperature, blood flow and water salinity regular for development of baby seahorse’s. He carries the eggs in his pouch until they hatch and he squirts them out as fully formed miniature seahorses into the water. It’s amazing really! 🙂 Thanks, Gemma

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