Seahorse

Seahorse

Subject: Environment

Section: species in news

Context: Extensive fishing off the Coromandel coast could be forcing the great seahorse to migrate laboriously toward Odisha.

More on the News:

• Fishing is less intense in the Bay of Bengal off the Odisha coastline. But the shallow coastal ecosystem of the eastern Indian State may not be the new comfort zone for the fish with a horse-like head, a study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Threatened Taxa.
• The study was based on a specimen of a juvenile great seahorse, or Hippocampus kelloggi, caught in a ring net and collected from the Ariyapalli fish landing centre in Odisha’s Ganjam district.
• It calls for increased monitoring of the coastal ecosystems of India on the east coast for better conservation and management of the remaining seahorse populations.

Seahorse

• There are 46 species of seahorses reported worldwide.
• They are known for their unique appearance, with a horse-like head, long snout, and a curled tail that they use to cling onto seagrasses, corals, and other underwater structures.
• Seahorses are unique in that the males carry and give birth to the young.
• After mating, the female seahorse transfers her eggs to a pouch on the male’s belly, where they are fertilized and develop until they are ready to be born. The male can carry hundreds of eggs at once, depending on the species.
• Seahorses are also known for their ability to change color and blend in with their surroundings, which helps them to avoid predators.
• They feed on small crustaceans and plankton, which they suck up through their snouts.
• They live in sheltered areas such as seagrass beds, estuaries, coral reefs, and mangroves.
• Seahorses are poor swimmers but migrate by rafting, clinging to floating substrata such as macroalgae or plastic debris for dispersal by ocean currents – to new habitats for successful maintenance of their population.
• Seahorses are mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate salt water throughout the world, from about 45°S to 45°N.
• These nine species are distributed along the coasts of eight States and five Union Territories from Gujarat to Odisha, apart from Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• The population of the great seahorse, which is among the eight species tagged ‘vulnerable’.
• Declining is due to its overexploitation for traditional Chinese medicines and as ornamental fish, combined with general destructive fishing and fisheries bycatch, the study said.

Conservation status

• IUCN: Vulnerable
• CITES: Appendix II