The Thrill of Discovery

Each year that we take another group of students to Layton for a week of Marine Biology, I create a "Most Wanted List". This list is made up of species which are known to live in the surrounding waters, but that I have never yet seen or at least have not seen in many years. Usually a reward of ice cream or some similar fare is offered to the underwater sleuth that discovers any of the organisms on my list. 

Perhaps at the very top of my list during our last trip was a seahorse. Our favorites tend to be invertebrates but the seahorse's rare status along with it's unique beauty placed this charming creature very high among the things I longed to see.
Half way through the week, our group was doing our annual night dive. This is where we all snorkel out from shore after it is completely dark with only small, underwater flashlights in hand.
Due to new diver's anxieties of being in the ocean in pitch blackness, we always stay in very close-knit groups with each group staying near to the others.
It is always a little touch and go as to what you can hear while you are snorkeling but this night, the stillness was broken by a very clear, very loud sentence not 15 yards from me. The voice belonged to Charles McMullen and the sentence was, "I found a seahorse!" Needless to say, this leader made a very abrupt turn towards Charles and covered the 15 yards in a time that would've made Michael Phelps proud. Sure enough, there was the first live seahorse I had ever laid eyes on, slowly waving his tiny dorsal fin to maintain it's balance against the light current while holding on to a purple pterogorgia coral with it's tail.
Soon everyone from all of the small groups were floating in a circle around the searhorse and it's coral anchor and you could literally hear "oohs" and "aahs" coming through snorkel tubes all around. Because of their tiny fins, seahorses are pretty lame when it comes to swimming. Though they can straighten out and swim horizontally like a regular fish (which this one eventually did) they still can barely make headway, even though their little dorsal fin can be wiggled 35 times per second. As a result, they must rely completely on camouflage for defense.

As an example, here is a photo taken last year by one of Central Christian's student's, Hannah Horner on a dive where we amazingly found 3 or 4 seahorses. Can you pick it out?
Anyway, back to our story of discovering our very first seahorse. After everyone had oohed and aahed for several minutes, it appeared to me that this fish was quite tame, it showed no reaction to the 10 shark-like things floating in a circle around it so I reached down and gently lifted it off the coral and placed the seahorse standing on it's curled tail in the palm of my hand under water. We were then able to carefully pass the seahorse around the circle under water to each person in the group. It would either rest upright in our palms or curl it's tail around our fingers. Finally, we placed it back near it's home soft coral where it straightened out and swam like it's close relatives, the pipefish, and reattached to the coral, blending in like it had before.
In addition to being such calm, gentle, beautiful creations, the seahorses are amazing in several other regards. These little guys have very healthy appetites. Though they are restricted to catching only what floats by as they hang on to a coral or blade of grass, a single seahorse has been observed catching and eating 3000 brine shrimp in a single day!
More uniquely the seahorses are one of the very few animals where the male carries their unborn young. The males possess a brood pouch on their ventral side. The female deposits her eggs into the male's pouch where they are internally fertilized and carried until he releases the fully-formed young into the water 20-21 days after the eggs were deposited.
All 5 seahorses that we have now found in the last two years have been the species Hippocampus Erectus, the Lined Seahorse. Though this species can be gray, red, green, or orange, all 5 we have found have been primarily black and all 5 have appeared to be the larger males all nearing 6" in length.
But though I have now layed eyes on 5 different seahorses, I will never forgot the thrill of the first one; the joy of discovery.
Thanks Charles. I hope you enjoyed your ice cream cone in Key West.