4/8/16

Baby Seahorses: Seven-Month Check In

It takes about 9 months for baby lined seahorses to grow to full size. So as you can see, these seahorses born this past September are already well on their way to adulthood. Several weeks ago they graduated to adult food — mysid shrimp — and a few are large enough to go into the larger tank!

Finally, a few of the largest seahorses made it into the large exhibit
across from the electric eel on Level 3!

Let's take a walk down memory lane to see how these amazing creatures have grown over the past few months! Here's a collection of pictures of the baby seahorses, starting with newborn pictures from last September.

September (squeee!): Newborn seahorses float around their small exhibit around the corner from their parents 
October: Still free floating but getting bigger
December: Their tails are stronger and grabbing onto the habitat added to their exhibit
Early January: Coloration getting much darker
Late January: Starting to look like tiny adults!

March: The seahorses started eating frozen mysid shrimp and grew by leaps and bounds.
They were just weeks away from joining the adults!

April: A few of the babies were added to the large exhibit finally! You can tell the young ones from the adults
in the exhibit because the youngsters are smaller, obviously, and they are much lighter in color.

Watching the babies grow has been an absolute treat this winter. Be sure to come visit to see these youngsters before they're all grown up!

For comparison, here's an adult lined seahorse. 

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