Hippocampus zebra
| Hippocampus zebra | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hippocampus zebra | ||||||||||||
| Whitley , 1964 |
Hippocampus zebra is a species of the seahorse genus. It lives in the tropical waters north of Australia .
Features and way of life
The body length makes up a little more than a third of the entire body length of this animal, the tail about two thirds. The maximum body length is eight centimeters, the crown is moderately high and has five flat thorns. The coloring of the animal is striking, marked by alternating yellowish white and brown to black horizontal stripes. Some stripes are also oblique or curved, such as on the head or stomach. His eyes are blue with yellowish white irises. Like most other seahorses, this species eats small prey such as crustaceans and planktonic zooplankton.
These animals are oviviparous , with males hatching the eggs in their pouches. These animals reach sexual maturity at a length of about seven centimeters. The females produce the eggs and then place them in the males' pouch, which is located under the belly. The male then fertilizes the eggs in the pouch and offers them protection until they hatch.
Occurrence and habitat
This seahorse lives in the waters in northern Australia, bounded in the west by Coral Bay to the Capricorn Group in the east, and mostly lives at a depth of 20 meters near coral reefs, but can also be up to a depth of 70 meters and be found over sandy or muddy soil.
Danger
This animal is endangered by the loss of its habitat, this occurs through the death of coral reefs, coastal pollution and fishing practices such as trawling . Likewise with the acidification of the oceans and the effects of climate change, the associated consequences such as an increase in the temperature of the sea surface and the more frequent storms associated with it. This species is rarely fished, if it is fished as bycatch, there is obviously little decrease in targeted fishing. However, more research is needed to determine in detail how coral decline affects this seahorse's populations. Therefore Hippocampus zebra as Data Deficient by the IUCN listed so that the existing data base is not sufficient for an assessment of the Aussterberisikos.
The entire genus Hippocampus was listed in Appendix II of the Washington Convention on the Protection of Species in November 2002 , which means that commercial trade is possible after a safety assessment by the exporting country.
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c d Hippocampus zebra in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2017. Posted by: Pollom, R., August 17, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d Bray, DJ, Thompson: Zebra Seahorse, Hippocampus zebra Whitley 1964. Fishes of Australia, accessed on February 20, 2019 (English).
- ↑ a b c Hippocampus zebra on Fishbase.org (English)