Seahorse - Hippocampus

It's hard for scientists to know how well the seahorse population is surviving because they know so little about the wee creature, but they do know that loss of coral reefs and seagrass beds will be having a large impact on their existence.

The Seahorse is one of the only two fish which swim upright.

One species of seahorse was classed the slowest moving fish.

Their eyes can move separately (one cod be looking forward and one looking back).

A seahorse will just cling to something stable for a long time, sucking in small crustacean and nutrients from the surrounding water.

Courtship for these fish can last for days, they spend a lot of time together doing things like swimming side-by-side holding each other's tails or performing courtship dances or just clinging to the same strand of grass, until the female feels it's time to fertilise her eggs. Male seahorses have a womb-like pouch on their belly which is filled with up to 1,500 little eggs from the female whilst mating. He'll hold them for 9-45 days until they pop out as fully developed teeny tiny seahorses. The father will then abandon his babies to go off and mate again with another seahorse mistress.

Whilst pregnant, the male feeds the eggs some type of nutrients similar to the lactose in mammal's milk.

Less than 0.5% of the infants will survive to maturity which is why so many are born.

The little seahorse in the photo above is called a Pygmy Seahorse which is one of the smallest of this species. They grow to be less then 2cm tall (around 17mm).

And as you can see, they're extremely good at camouflaging into grasses and corals where they live.

Seahorses are said to be the head romantics of all species.