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Adult seahorses eat 30 to 50 times a day if food is available; due to their slow consumption they must feed constantly to survive. [20] Big-belly seahorses do not have a stomach or teeth, so they feed by sucking small invertebrates in through their bony tubular snouts with a flick of their head. Their snouts can expand if the prey is larger ...
Seahorses range in size from 1.5 to 35 cm (0.6 to 13.8 in). [13] They are named for their equine appearance, with bent necks and long snouted heads and a distinctive trunk and tail. Although they are bony fish, they do not have scales, but rather thin skin stretched over a series of bony plates, which are arranged in rings throughout their bodies.
The ribs attach to the spine and there are no limbs or limb girdles. The main external features of the fish, the fins, are composed of either bony or soft spines called rays which, with the exception of the caudal fins, have no direct connection with the spine. They are supported by the muscles which compose the main part of the trunk. [2]
The white muscle is anaerobic and it does not need oxygen. Red muscles are used for sustained activity such as cruising at slow speeds on ocean migrations. White muscles are used for bursts of activity, such as jumping or sudden bursts of speed for catching prey. [45] Mostly fish have white muscles, but the muscles of some fishes, such as ...
Short snouted seahorses are considered ovoviviparous meaning that the female deposits eggs into a pouch on the males stomach, called a brood pouch, and the male goes through pregnancy and labour. [9] Sexual maturation occurs during the first reproductive season after birth.
Hippocampus angustus, commonly known as the narrow-bellied seahorse, western Australian seahorse, or western spiny seahorse, [3] is a species of marine fish of the family Syngnathidae. It is found in waters off of Australia, from Perth to Hervey Bay , and the southern portion of Papua New Guinea in the Torres Strait .
The histological structure of their intestine is similar to that of seahorse species that also lack a stomach (agastric teleosts) such as the H. abdomnialis and the H. guttulatus. Thus, these species may have split from each other from a common ancestor, but more than just morphological data would be needed to confirm this observation. [11]
The seahorse is able to bend its tail ventrally due to its possession of body plates. The hypoxia muscle is responsible for bending the seahorse's tail. The plates send forces to the hypoxia muscles to ensure bending of the tail. These functions of the musculoskeletal system allow us to understand the anatomy of seahorses in further depth.