bugger that
snowboarders use them skimboarders use them bungee jumpers even use the, so they must me cool!
.thought you might like to know,
Seahorses are often thought of as being monogamous, though recent research shows this may not be true. The male seahorse is equipped with a brood pouch on the ventral, or front-facing, side. When mating, the female seahorse deposits the eggs in the male’s pouch, which the male then internally fertilizes. The male carries the eggs until they emerge, expelling fully-developed, miniature seahorses in the water.
When two parties discover a mutual interest at the beginning of breeding season, they court for several days, even while others try to interfere. During this time they have been known to change color, swim side by side holding tails or grip the same strand of sea grass with their tails and wheel around in unison in what is known as their “pre-dawn dance”. They eventually engage in their “true courtship dance” lasting about 8 hours, during which the male pumps water through the egg pouch on his trunk which expands and cleaves open to display an appealing emptiness. When the female’s eggs reach maturity, she and her mate let go of any anchors and snout-to-snout, drift upward out of the seagrass, often spiraling as they rise. The female inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch, where she deposits her eggs, which the male fertilizes. The fertilized eggs then embed in the pouch wall and become enveloped with tissue. New research indicates the male releases sperm into the surrounding sea water during fertilization, and not directly into the pouch as was previously thought. Most seahorse species’ pregnancies last two to four weeks.
As the female deposits anywhere from dozens to thousands of eggs from a chamber in her ovipositor into the male pouch, her body slims while his swells. Both seahorses then sink back to the bottom and she swims away. Scientists believe the courtship behaviour serves to synchronize the movements of the two animals so that the male can receive the eggs when the female is ready to deposit them. The eggs are then fertilized in the father’s pouch which is coursed with prolactin, the same hormone responsible for milk production in pregnant mammals. As seahorses are not mammals his pouch instead provides oxygen as well as a controlled environment incubator. The eggs then hatch in the pouch where the salinity of the water is regulated; this prepares the newborns for life in the sea. Throughout the male’s incubation, his mate visits him daily for “morning greetings”. The female seahorse swims over for about 6 minutes of interaction reminiscent of courtship. They change color, wheel around sea grass fronds, and finally promenade, holding each other’s tails. Then, the female swims away until the next morning, and the male goes back to vacuuming up food through his snout.
The number of young released by the male seahorse averages 100-200 for most species, but may be as low as 5 for the smaller species, or as high as 1500, with pregnancy lasting from two to four weeks, depending on the species. When the fry are ready to be born, the male undergoes muscular contractions to expel them from his pouch. 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 care for their young once they are born. Infants are susceptible to death from predators or being swept into ocean currents, where they drift away from rich feeding grounds or into temperatures too extreme for their delicate bodies. Fewer than five infants of every 1,000 born survive to adulthood, helping to explain why litters are so large. The survival rates of these infants are actually fairly high compared to fish standards, because they are initially sheltered in their father’s pouch during the earliest stages of development, while the eggs of most other fish are abandoned immediately after fertilization. This makes the process worth the great cost to the father of incubating his offspring.
