Birth announcement: Baby dwarf seahorses!

It should be no surprise to learn that the dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae) is one of the smallest seahorse species. The adults on exhibit in the Yawkey Coral Reef Center are only about an inch long!

Dwarf seahorses are impossibly tiny. They inhabit shallow grass beds.

Like other seahorse species, the males have an abdominal pouch where they brood eggs delivered by females. Although males become “pregnant,” seahorses do not display sex role reversal. Males compete with one another for access to a mate and form monogamous pair bonds. Many of the seahorses in the exhibit have paired off and you know what happens next—babies!

If you look closely at the photo below you'll see some of the babies clinging to the grassy habitat in the exhibit. They look like the adults only much, much tinier. It doesn't take too long for the juveniles to grow up however. In fact, some of the adults on exhibit now were born on exhibit!

Can you see the baby clinging to the grasses on the middle right?

The dwarf seahorses exhibit in the Yawkey Coral Reef Center deserves a closer look—because those babies are so tiny you'll need to take a good long look to find them!

The adult and baby seahorses cling to the grasses in the exhibit.

Here are some blogs you might enjoy:

• Meet some more tiny animals around the Aquarium
• Have you seen the larger seahorses wrestle?
• Seadragons are the flashier, camouflaged cousins from Australia.