White Seahorse
White Seahorse | ||||||||||||
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White Seahorse ( Hippocampus whitei ) |
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Hippocampus whitei | ||||||||||||
Bleeker , 1855 |
White Seahorse ( Hippocampus whitei ) is a twelve centimeter long seahorse that lives on the coast of eastern Australia (Central Queensland to New South Wales ). It lives on sponges in reefs and in seagrass meadows , always near the coast, in quiet bays, mostly at depths of up to twenty meters, less often deeper.
A similar seahorse that was found in the Solomon Islands , eastern New Guinea and in the Gulf of Carpentaria is believed by Kuiter to be a unique, as yet undescribed species.
Reproduction
White's seahorses are mostly monogamous . The pairs spawn each month at spring tide and full moon . As with all seahorses, the female lays the eggs in a brood pouch on the male's stomach. The 60 to 80 hatching young live, like the adults, right on the sea floor and do not have a pelagic stage. White's seahorse has already been successfully bred in the aquarium.
literature
- Rudie H. Kuiter: Seahorses: pipefish, shredded fish and their relatives , Ulmer (Eugen), 2001, ISBN 3-80013-244-3
Web links
- Whites sea horses on Fishbase.org (English)
- Hippocampus whitei inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Project Seahorse, 2003. Retrieved September 3, 2013.