The dwarf seahorse’s scientific name is hippocampus zosterae. The dwarf seahorse faces an uncertain future. It is threatened by habitat loss (Biological Diversity). It is the slowest fish on earth with a speed of five feet per hour (Guinness World Records). It spends most of its time using its tail to cling to seagrass and catch tiny plankton. They are found mostly found in the Florida Keys, Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Gulf of Mexico (Monterey Bay Aquarium).
The female generally has reproductive maturity at 118 days. Dwarf seahorses get to know each other before they mate. They will dance for many mornings before hooking up tails and mating. When mating they would move up to the water column (Live Aquaria). The male seahorse always is pregnant and never demonstrates sex role reversal. The male would give an average of 10-30 fry. The fry are independent from birth and immediately start eating freshly hatched brine shrimp. The babies would be well developed and after three months will also be able to mate (Monterey Bay Aquarium). When they mate they would not take any other additional mates that they are offered (Animal Diversity Web).
The Dwarf Seahorse mostly eats non insect arthropods and is always a carnivore. To catch food they hook onto seagrass and are well camouflaged and catch drifting tiny animals like brine shrimp, copepods, and freshly hatched shrimp larvae. They prey is sucked near through the snout. Food progress in the seahorse is very fast causing it to absorb little nutrients. Because of this the sea horse can consume up to 3,000 brine shrimp a day (Animal Diversity Web).
The Dwarf Seahorse’s predators include tunas, dorados, skates and rays, penguins, crabs, and water birds. Young dwarf’s are at the risk of at t...
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...their ecosystems. They as predators help regulate populations of their prey. As prey for other animals they provide a food source. Consumption of crustaceans from seahorses and other predators to keep the population balanced. The dwarf seahorse is a source of food for many animals (Animal Diversity Web ).
In Asia it can be used as medicine for economic importance. It is believed to help with asthma. None of the tests have shown to work though. They have also been known to be powerful and spiritual in myths. There are lots of myths surrounding exotic creatures. They are also very important to studies and research. The unique reproduction systems stymies scientists. There is currently no adverse affects on humans. The chinese medicine is the largest use of the Dwarf. It is very endangered because of all this catching (Animal Diversity Web ).
In reproduction, the female produces clusters of eggs that she carries in one or two egg sacs that are attached to her abdomen. Once hatched, The T. Californium’ life cycle has quite a few stages. The first being six naupliar (young) stages lasting 4 – 10 days. Next come the 6-copepodite stages (7-14 days for the first 5 stages) ending in the last stage where T.californicus is a sexually mature adult. Adults then live from 40 – 90 days after the stages are complete (Rickets and Calvin 1985).
Seahorses are a prime example of species whose atypical biology and unusual global distribution leads to a series of evolutionary questions. Seahorses (genus Hippocampus) are a marine species that have extensively been studied because of their abnormal behaviors in the marine environment compared to other marine creatures. Many of the seahorse species have large ranges, both longitudinally (over a great horizontal distance across the ocean), and latitudinal (great vertical distance within the ocean), regardless of the fact that they are characterized as weak swimmers and lack any large structural fins for efficient swimming (Lourie et al., 1999a). Although they do have these large range environments, seahorses
13. Species Summary for Etheostoma nianguae: Niangua darter. Page, L.M. and B.M. Burr,1991. (On-line) http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?ID=3444
...to 300 individuals, the newborn seahorses are independent of parental care and the male is free to fertilize and accept more eggs(Lourie 11). The offspring bearing roles displayed by Hippocampus spp. is an extreme shift in relation to many other species of kingdom Animalia, of which the bearing of young is predominantly carried out by females. According to Foster, growth rates throughout the life cycle and the duration of the life cycle of seahorses in the wild varies between species and cannot be determined due to insufficient research data(foster 22). Once sexual maturity is reached, often determined by the presence of a brood pouch in males, adults are able to reproduce. During reproduction, the overwhelming majority of Hippocampus species display monogamous behaviors, usually mating with the same partner for the duration of the mating cycle(lourie 10-11).
The most scientific name for this little water flea is called the Daphnia, a very small planktonic crustacean that measures up to five millimeters long. Daphnia are part of the Cladocera family, which are small crustaceans of all sorts commonly called water fleas. The Daphnia are called water fleas because the movements they make are very similar to the way fleas move around. Daphnias “inhabit most types of standing fresh water except for extreme habitats, such as hot springs.” Many of these creatures live as filter feeders but some can be found clinging onto water plants or skimming the very bottom of the shallow pond.
Without sharks to keep the jack and snapper populations in check, their populations flourish. When the jack and snapper populations flourish, they eat too many of the herbivorous fish. With too few herbivorous fish, algae soon overtakes the coral; out-competing it until very little, if any, remains. This is why eliminating sharks from the food chain would have devastating effects on the surrounding environment, as well as the ocean as a whole.
...them to move to another environment and adapt to the conditions there. On the other hand, the deep sea is another important habitat. The deep sea is the farthest down we humans can go before we reach the Earth’s mantle. It holds many nutrients and chemicals, ones that can help advance the fields of biochemistry and the medical field as well. The preservation of all oceanic habitats are important, for it has not been totally explored just yet.
Shark slaughter has led to shark populations being rapidly decimated all around the globe. Fishermen report that sharks are also getting smaller because they are not being given enough time to fully mature. Although there are other fish that are targeted more than sharks, they are not exactly affected by the kind of endangerment that sharks are currently experiencin...
4) In some animals, the roles of the genders may be switched. In seahorses, the males are responsible for giving birth and raising the offspring. In this case, males have more at stake and so the males are the “choosier” mate. They choose a female mate based on the female’s characteristics.
Impact on Environment Sea Lampreys feed off fish by puncturing its skin and drinking the bodily fluids of the host organism. Their prey
The body of the shrimp is two parts the thorax which is the body and the head , the body pieces are connected by the cephalorax and a narrow abdomen. The mouth if the shrimp works with the gills so they can be used. Shrimp have a hard shell that keeps everything together and protects them, its legs, eyes, and rostrum grow out of the hard shell. The use their nose or a sharp peak which there there basically the sing thing to protect their self from all the bigger and other animals it come in contact with and it sticks them with and it has a length that the shrimp lets out to be able to reach where the shrimp wants to get the other animals. Shrimp have some similarities to fish like when they travel, breed, and eat its usually done in schools (schools area group of the species). A (shrimp) single female is capable of producing a large number of offspring, one shrimp can lay up to one million eggs in a single session, take two weeks to hatch it takes two weeks to
...n in Starfish Caught by Towed Demersal Fishing Gears." Marine Biology 138.3 (2001): 527-36. Print.
Frogs are needed for everyday life. They are part of pond life. Each animal is important because even in the pond, there is a food chain. Frogs are amphibians, animals that spend half of their lives under water, and remainder on land. The first frog appeared in the early Jurassic period about 200 million years ago.
All axolotls exhibit neoteny, which is the act of reaching sexual maturity while still being in the larval state or without undergoing metamorphosis. It takes one to two years for an axolotl to fully prepare for mating without any risks (Clare, 1999). Even though they are sexually matured within 12 months, breeding can be dangerous and harmful to young axolotls’ bodies. While they are still reaching the breeding stage, males and females often separate from each other since until it is time to mate. By 18 months of age, Mexican salamanders can begin
Loggerhead Sea Turtles have many important benefits and attributions not only to the ocean but to humans as well. Since Loggerheads transport nutrients from oceans to beaches through their migrations and nesting they increase the rate of nutrient recycling in benthic, ocean bottom, ecosystems (Wilson et al. 2010). They constantly will be maintaining the coral reef ecosystem as well.