The seahorse, as you most likely know, gets its name from
having a bent neck and long snouts that resemble horses. This unique fish, with
its odd-shaped body that doesn’t even have a tail fin, gives it the distinction
of being one of the slowest swimmers in the world. According to marine
biologist Brad Gemmell of the University of Texas at Austin, seahorses don’t
swim all that much, choosing instead to anchor themselves with prehensile tails
to seagrass, much like monkeys do.
Since seahorses seem to be poor swimmers, just how do they
find food? This is the question Gemmell and his colleagues sought to answer in
their research, investigating how these unique fish feed on miniscule
crustaceans known as copepods.
Copepods, which look like shrimp but only on a microscopic
level, are a crucial part of the marine food chain, as Gemmell points out.
They’re fed on a by a huge variety of marine animals, particularly during the
early stages of their lives. And yes, they’re also fed on by most of the
commercially harvested fish we know today.
Being a type of prey animal highly fed on by fish, have
evolved to come armed with some effective escape behaviour. These critters are
sensitive to water disturbances, in particular, movements in the water made by
approaching predators.
When in flight mode, copepods can swim distances over 500
times their body size per second. That’s incredible, considering that the
fastest land animal, the cheetah, can only do 30 times its body length per
second. If humans had the same speed of a copepod, they could run close to
2,000 miles per hour.
It’s interesting to note that despite being slow swimmers,
seahorses excelled at capturing the quicker, highly evasive copepods. Their
body shape allows them to drift without disturbing the water, while their
prehensile tails allow them to stay stationary and wait for prey.
Learn more about the seahorse on Discovery
News.
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