Wild Facts

Happy Labour Day everyone!  I hope you are all enjoying your long weekend.  Before we get into Wild Fact #899, I wanted to let you know that I am in the process of finding a new home for our Wild Facts blog. The new website will allow for greater advancements and increased flexibility in the future. I will keep you posted on any further developments.

Onto the fact of the day! It will be a quick one today since I am sure you are all tired from the weekend festivities. Seahorses may not be as popular as regular horses, probably because they don’t make for very entertaining races, however, they do make for an entertaining Wild Fact. Do you know what is so odd about the mating behaviour of the seahorse? Well, let me tell you! It all starts with an unique courting period which may include changing colours, swimming beside each other holding tails (awww, how sweet!), and dancing.  For the record, anyone who has been lucky enough to see me dance knows that it does not work well for courting! Once the two seahorses decide to mate the female will deposit her mature eggs into the brood pouch on the male seahorse, which is located on the front of his body.  No, that is not a typo, I really meant to say the male seahorse! Once the eggs are deposited, the male seahorse will internally fertilize the eggs and continue to carry them until they emerge as fully developed, miniature seahorses. At this point, I bet all of the women reading this post are envious of the seahorse, while the guys are thanking their lucky stars!

Seahorse Fast Fact:  Seahorses mate for life (that’s right, til death do them part).

I hope you enjoyed Labour Day’s fact and as usual please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.  You can comment on anything you feel like talking about.

        
        
    

Posted Seahorses |