Dwarf Seahorse

The pygmy seahorse is the smallest of the genus Hippocampus, generally ranging in size from 2-2.5 cm (the largest reported size is 5.0 cm). The body is covered with spherical spines and the skin is covered with small warts. The snout is long relative to the size of the body; the head protuberance is high and spherical. There are 11-13 dorsal fins with a dark stripe on the lower edge. The body rings are 10-14 on the trunk; 31-33 on the tail. There are clear differences between males and females. The male pygmy seahorse has a brood pouch on the top of the ventral ridge, which is about 16-20 mm in size.
The pygmy seahorse has a variety of colors, usually tan, but some pygmy seahorses can range from green to nearly black.

Country: Bahamas, Mexico (Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Yucatán), United States (Texas, Florida, Louisiana), Bermuda.
The small seahorse is distributed in the western Atlantic Ocean from Bermuda, northern Bahamas, and northeast Florida south along the coast of the United States, from the Florida Keys north along the Gulf Coast into the Gulf of Mexico, south and east to Cancun, Mexico.
The small seahorse typically inhabits floating vegetation and shallow seagrass flats (Lourie et al., 1999). Small seahorses in Tampa Bay and the Florida Keys were evenly distributed among all types of seagrass. In addition, there was no stratification across space or time in the use of seagrass habitats by males, females, and juveniles.

The dwarf seahorse is the smallest of the Syngnathidae and Hippocampus.

The diet of the dwarf seahorse consists of live prey, including small crustaceans such as amphipods, shrimps, other small invertebrates and fish fry. When foraging, they sit in a position secured by their tails and wait for prey to approach without moving. Once prey is spotted, the young seahorse will attack the prey and suck the prey through its nose.

The breeding season for young seahorses begins in mid-February and ends in late October, depending on day length and water temperature. Although males hatch, young seahorses do not show a reversal of gender roles, with males still competing for mates. For example, males will twist their tails, slam their heads at each other, and make snapping sounds when competing with females.

The hatching rate of young seahorses is not high, with only 3-55 fully independent pups released from the male pouch into the environment after a gestation period of about 10 days (Masonjones and Lewis, 1996; Lourie et al., 2004). Newly released pups are about 8.5 mm long and are fully formed seahorses that require no further care from either parent. During the breeding season, a pair of seahorses will reproduce within 4-20 hours after the male releases the pup from the brood pouch.

Extensive research and fishery-independent monitoring data have been available to describe changes in seahorse populations in the northern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast of Florida (which accounts for 46% of its geographic range) since 20 years ago. Based on analysis of available data, overall seahorse populations appear to be stable.

Major potential threats to seahorses include development for the aquarium trade and loss of seagrass habitat.

Listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2012 ver 3.1) - Least Concern (LC).

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