The team of aquarium of Palmitos Park has achieved the species of seahorses Hippocampus Reidi breed for the first time in our enclosures.

On July of 2008, five male and a female of longsnout seahorse (or slender seahorse) arrived to our park. In September of this year there were several clutches without success. However, a few months ago the team of aquarium has achieved the survival of two litters and at this moment, five hatchlings of theses litters can be seen by the visitors of Palmitos Park.

Seahorses are a group of unique marine fish, unlike the rest of the fish, their head is at right angles to the rest of the body and this consists of a series of bony plates arranged in rings throughout their body. Seahorses swim upright by using a dorsal fin. Another feature of seahorses is the presence of a prehensile tail to replace the anal fin, which can be rolled up and used to cling to the stems of underwater plants and algae.

Males are equipped with a brood pouch on the ventral side. When mating, the female deposit the eggs in the male’s pouch, where are internally fertilizes. The male carries the eggs until they emerge, expelling fully-developed, miniature seahorses in the water. Pregnancy lasts between 10 days and 6 weeks, depending on water temperature. Each litter could be about 300 fry of only 2-4 mm long and only survive approximately 10% of them.

The longsnout seahorse or slender seahorse (Hippocampus Reidi) belong to family Sygnathidae and eat small shrimp, tiny fish and zooplankton. In our aquarium, we fed them with hatchlings brine shrimp (genus artemia) offspring and when they are adult, we fed them with species of the orders Mysida.