Slender seahorse

Hippocampus reidi

Reidi hippocampus, with the German name Longsnout seahorse or long- snouted seahorse, is a widespread in tropical regions seahorse species. It was first documented in 1933 by Isaac Ginsburg.

Dissemination

Hippocampus reidi lives in the tropical zones of the western Atlantic, from Carolina to the south of Brazil, Bermuda and the Bahamas but also in other tropical regions. Occur depending on the location in color differentiated subspecies, such as on the coasts of Brazil, the orange, but slightly larger subspecies, hippocampus reidi brasil.

The animals live mainly in seaweed and Tangwiesen in mainland nearby. Between the algae they find support in search of plankton. Corals are shunned because they contain nettle poison. Hippocampus reidi are grateful and interesting residents in a saltwater aquarium and therefore popular as such. Since seahorses are an endangered species, international trade takes place under the control of CITES, which permits the export of animals only with CITES documents. However, offspring are relatively easy, so now most of the animals originate in the German trade from local breeding.

Life and characteristics

Hippocampus reidi be about 14 to 18 cm tall and about two to five years old. At long-snouted seahorse, some characteristic features of seahorses can be observed: a distinct social life and courtship behavior, the ability to arbitrarily influence the coloring and a distinctive feeding behavior as a food specialist. The animals are as lurking predators constantly looking for zooplankton and eat their prey by producing a very rapid sucking motion be folded down for their lower jaw a strong undertow. So prey is even sucked that does not fit completely through the tubular mouth. Occur shortly after ingestion often fine booty parts from the gills.

Reproduction

Pairs usually are monogamous and are open all year round for reproduction capable. During copulation, they maintain close physical contact, by opting to hold their tails together and nestle on the side close to the partner. When mating, the female lays the eggs in a brood pouch on the abdomen of the male, from the 100 to 250 fully developed juveniles are released after about two weeks. These are put on yourself and feed on tiny zooplankton such as rotifers.