The Evolution of Seahorses

Sea horses are amazing animals because of many of their strange features like male pregnancy but also due to their beautifully unique body shape. However, this may be the reason why seahorses are famous but it actually makes them very bad swimmers so why did they evolve to have this unique body shape?
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Sources:
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www.pnas.org/c...

[@CuriousArchive]

I once heard seahorse swimming is "like if you stood on a skateboard and flapped a Denny's menu behind you"

[@nathanielgrey4091]

True Facts?

[@lilgremlin6222]

LOL

[@derekw9724]

That's such an awesome description; I guess I'm gonna go snag some Denny's menus later

[@Luksaee]

zefrank1?

[@jesst2881]

@@Luksaee yep. Just watched it

[@carrier2823]

Never thought I'd hear someone say that seahorses are "effective predators"

[@ScumfuckMcDoucheface]

hahaha ÷)

[@Goudhaantje1993]

''It doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you don't stop'' - Confuscius

[@ScumfuckMcDoucheface]

@@Goudhaantje1993 a great many people have said that to a great many exes... right before they stopped... for the last time.

[@eradict]

F tier

[@alvaronavarro4895]

They are effective Copepod hunters, but innefective anything else hunters

[@oscarmasters9307]

Who refused the opportunity to call pipefish "seahoses"

[@Cillana]

😄

[@chteretreeart]

I have always loved seahorses and pipefish and leafy seadragons but I never thought about how they became the way they are so i am very interested now

[@gildedpeahen876]

The Dance of the Weedy Sea Dragons!! 🖤🐉🖤 it's one of the most beautiful things in the world

[@chiefkeith5641]

Congratulations

[@lemmingscanfly5]

I was obsessed with seadragons as a kid

[@thenortonanti]

Seahorses are bad at swimming? Then explain Kingdra's speed with Swift Swim. Checkmate Moth Light Media

[@doggo7078]

isn't kingdra a seadragon though? Like the cousins of seahorses

[@Bullsquid592]

the difference is the dragon scales, irl ones would take them from F tier to A, maybe even S.

[@commonpepe2270]

Have you ever seen a seahorse on land in the rain though? You haven't, because they're too fast for the human eye.

[@potatobird52]

Wait guys I just realized that male kingdra would be the ones to carry horsea babies

[@TheJShep1229]

@@potatobird52 I don’t know how to feel about that

[@YourPhysicsSimulator]

"But despite of their strange appearance, they are actually just fish" My disappointment is immesurable and my day is ruined

[@ocytocine96]

Right ? I always thought they followed a completely different lineage from other vertebrates

[@YourPhysicsSimulator]

@@ocytocine96 exactly

[@Jesse__H]

I'm genuinely a little embarrassed that I never thought to ask what seahorses ARE. So they're fish...oh.

[@markel4745]

That’s how I feel too lmao

[@jayh3805]

To be fair, despite your strange appearance, you're actually just a fish.

[@Mr.Lubbox-Lobsterlegz1]

“Despite their strange shape they are basically still just fish” 😲 I don’t know why such a simple line just hit so different, Lol like wth did I think they were? Guess I never put much thought into it

[@theace8502]

It's because they look almost nothing like a fish. More like another type of animal all together

[@Mr.Lubbox-Lobsterlegz1]

@@theace8502 Exactly, it’s like I would put them in another category of undersea creature all together but I guess biologically they are really fish, so interesting

[@theace8502]

@@Mr.Lubbox-Lobsterlegz1 I agree, very interesting

[@FloozieOne]

I know what you mean. When he said that I did a double-take and thought "fish"?? Really? Even with his diagrams it is hard to make the connections, but by the time he gets to the end he's got you convinced. I think this is the best channel on YT.

[@tfGalvatron1]

I'm glad I'm not alone in this

[@mjkpanda]

I look forward to these vids, maybe more than any others on the tube

[@bone8352]

Which tube

[@kennethsatria6607]

This male pregnancy strategy is pretty good but I think the reason other animals can't is cause bird and reptile eggs are too heavy and large to carry on the move, and for mammals well the female specs more to developing the young further than egg layers, and males would just over complicate the process. Meanwhile fish only have to worry about things that eat the eggs, in water there's no risk of drying or having complex gestation, and so are very flexible. Though in cases of dedicated fatherhood, I feel that is very apparent in several species across the board. Sometimes its a team effort like with birds (the responsibility increasing with predatory species who need to feed the chick more), or its like taking long shifts like penguins as one finds food. African Bullfrog males, and Gharial males often stick around to care for a community's worth of children, sometimes cause they were unsuccessful or too young to mate. And new to me is Male Gorillas and Male Tigers are actually very good fathers. Even with the female absent or dead they put in a lot of work to care for their children and leading them around to safety or food.

[@pendlera2959]

If you're interested in animals with a lot of paternal investment, you should look up mouthbrooding fish. Not all species are male mouthbrooders, but a lot of them are, including several species of _Betta_ (same genus as the common bettas you find in pet stores). Mouthbrooding is pretty fascinating in general. In some female mouthbrooding species the females will pick up the eggs so soon after laying them that the male doesn't even have time to fertilize them, so the males have evolved egg spots on their anal fin to get the female to peck at it so their milt can get in her mouth to fertilize the eggs.

[@jamieparker6323]

Male pregnancy essentially evolved from a basal form of parental care as you mentioned, whereby instead of looking after the eggs in a nest, like sticklebacks do, they likely at some point decided to pick them up and carry them around with them. This basal form is still present in some pipefish, you can literally see the evolution of the pouch through different pipefishes until you reach the most advanced in the seahorse. If you think their male pregnancy is interesting, you should read about their immune systems... hands down the most bizarre and incredible creatures

[@SaruCharmed]

It's interesting to think of a mammal that could lay its "eggs" in the male's body, which his sperm then fertilized and he became pregnant, rather than the other way around.

[@StonedtotheBones13]

I think it'd be difficult for mammals due to the whole placenta thing. And the fact that we typically come with an innie and an outtie pair.

[@RinpochesRose]

Saying ‘the male gets pregnant’ isn’t quite right, surely. The male can gestate the eggs and carry the babies but he doesn’t ‘get pregnant’.

[@cyborgzloth]

they're actualy more related to tuna than actual horses

[@ploutophylax]

🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@SnubbyDaArtist]

Bc they are fish and horses are mammals xd

[@wormthirtyfour]

@@SnubbyDaArtist yeah bc horses are lobe-finned fish and seahorses and tuna are ray-finned fish

[@eriosyce688]

😂

[@kanvolu]

@@SnubbyDaArtist we got a genius here

[@reiteration6273]

Less than 0.1% of their young survive to adulthood... That's one hell of a child mortality rate there. o.O

[@StonedtotheBones13]

Octopi are also startling

[@mushmush4980]

Makes me wonder how they even exist at all

[@duanesamuelson2256]

It's actually a very low mortality rate for fish. There are a few who have a lower rate but not many. And I believe it's 1% not 0.1%

[@ToriKo_]

@@mushmush4980 exactly, it seems like a miracle that any complex life exists at all, let alone be robust enough to give birth to another organism that somehow inherits complex behaviour that is encoded in genes??? Like everything seems so contingent on a billion different things and yet that’s just the way life works and it seems to work really well. It often feels like the more I learn the less I really understand

[@joaogarcia6170]

Quantity over quality is heavily utilized in the animal kingdom, it's called k-selection. The numbers are probably pretty close to other animals like mosquitos, which lay 1000s of eggs but only a dozen or so make it.

[@eRic-hr3yl]

'Despite everything, it's still fish.'

[@GandalfTheTsaagan]

All vertebrates ever

[@honestjohn3881]

"Seahorses are actually just fish." You sit on a throne of lies.

[@bazpearce9993]

Okay. Where did they evolve from them? Please don't say dog did it.

[@pacotaco1246]

@@bazpearce9993 we are also fish

[@eviljoel]

@@bazpearce9993 You're bad at detecting obvious jokes.

[@bazpearce9993]

@@eviljoel You're bad at being annoying.

[@tjarkschweizer]

@@bazpearce9993 Calm down. It's okay if you didn't get the joke. No need to get defensive.

[@carmelosaurus7480]

I feel like TierZoo needs to watch this video

[@elfpi55-bigB0O85]

is this a safe space to say that tierzoo gets too caught up in his video-gamification of the natural world and often forgets that every living thing is the best adapted creature to its environment, often to the determent to the beautiful creatures that aren't flashy predators? I mean don't get me wrong, I like his videos, but I feel like he intentionally oversimplifies evolutionary biology and doesn't adjust for his bias towards "easier to sum up in two sentences" creatures. He also somehow forgot to include seagulls on the tier list of birds? Like, how is that even possible?

[@rng8899]

At the end of the day, TierZoo is entertainment. One shouldn't take it too seriously. Though admittedly, the constant underrating of hadrosaurs still annoys me.

[@SyahidanIbnMokhtar]

Someone need to comment something interesting in tierzoo's latest video and then drop this video's link when he responded.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Come on, I thought everyone thought Tierzoo being biased towards aggro was the entire premise ;)

[@Apokalypse456]

@Hernando Malinche true that, he seems to think success means being at the very top of the food chain, whilst success actually is just surviving.

[@stefanostokatlidis4861]

Seahorses are convergent with chameleons. Ambush predators of small prey with very good camouflage and a priehensile tail.

[@lexprontera8325]

Haha, not a bad parallel. One could also say they are like mantises. They mimic plants for camouflage in shape as well as color.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

I can't believe this came out on the day when I saw a marine biologist react to tierzoo's fish ranking list video and agreeing with him on the ranking of seahorses as trash. This was incredibly informative, and I have gained back all of my respect for these strange creatures.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@abhignavijjapurapu209 Yeah. I didn't really get much of an -ologist vibe from him. But he did say he was a "real fish biologist" so I kind of assumed he wouldn't straight up lie.

[@putraduha3176]

@Lex Bright Raven more like class, not player

[@notburntkebab]

@@abhignavijjapurapu209 the youtuber is AVNJ, he is an actual marine biologist

[@JPMgeo]

TierZoo gives a very warped view of why animals evolve the way they do, it's not about being the most powerful animal but rather filling a niche successfully.

[@starlight0313]

It’s AVNJ, he does fish observing for river fish, which is why he’s seemingly less knowledgable about ocean fish

[@nicks1451]

Shared pregnancy is probably one of the coolest traits in the animal kingdom. Thank you Moth Light Media!

[@consensus949]

Why is that called pregnancy though? It's pretty much similar to how male birds sit on eggs except underwater you gotta carry them around with you

[@junhwe9289]

@@consensus949 because they carry the eggs inside of themselves. “At the end of a gestation period usually lasting from two to four weeks, the pregnant male's abdominal area begins to undulate rhythmically, and strong muscular contractions eject from a few dozen to as many as 1,000 fully formed baby seahorses into the surrounding water.” I don’t think the metaphor is accurate at all, considering they give birth.

[@andrewgan557]

@@junhwe9289most male animals always afraid what if your offspring you have happen to be not yours. In case of them no problem.

[@junhwe9289]

@@andrewgan557 what???????? The female deposits the eggs inside of the males and the male fertilizes them. So yeah, they’re his. If I’m understanding what you wrote at all

[@andrewgan557]

@@junhwe9289 I'm saying no wonder why other animals particularly the males if they suspect the offspring wasn't his they often kill the babies. In case of the sea horses cause the male both fertilize and carry the eggs he certainly knows that's his offspring he's carrying.

[@iwasadeum]

I love how nature works. Literally a perfect balance. This otherwise clumsy fish adapted so specifically to hunt a very particular organism. This hyper-specialization also means the seahorse is extremely vulnerable to extinction should the source of food evolve or go extinct. Then another 20 million years down the line, a similar fish would evolve to fill a similar niche. Awesome

[@eljanrimsa5843]

Copepods have arguably the biggest biomass of all animals, and their are more than twice as many copepod species as mammal species.

[@mushmush4980]

@@eljanrimsa5843 ig they aren't going extinct then. Hopefully climate change doesn't mess things up tho

[@ByGraceThroughFaith777]

If they were able to swim around the world at the pace of the tectonic plates for millions of years, are y'all scared of climate change? 😆 🤣

[@QUIRK1019]

I had never heard of Sea Dragons before I saw one at an aquarium, and I was transfixed. They are such fascinating creatures

[@xemiii]

I was wondering how these things evolved, nice to see a vid about it

[@BadLuckDez]

Gotta raise it to level 32 for it to evolve. After that, gotta trade it with a dragon scale for it to evolve again.

[@Gumpy01]

OH MY GOD IVE BEEN BEGGING PBS EONS TO MAKE A VIDEO ON THIS AND YOU BEAT THEM TO IT YOU'RE INCREDIBLE

[@quintenwhyte6660]

Give this man a cookie🍪🍪🍪

[@TheLaughingDove]

There are a few mouth brooding fish species where the male carries the eggs, and you see egg carrying in a couple of frog species too (one notably has vocal sac pregnancies!). I believe there are also some water bugs where males carry eggs...? Not sure on that one. While the belly sack resemblance of seahorse pregnancy is remarkable in its own right, male pregnancy analogs are unusual but not unique to sygnathids :> love your videos as always, keep em coming!

[@impishinformation7237]

*David Attenborough voice* The most vicious of undersea predators, these monsters use their long, strong tail to grasp tightly onto sea grass in order to ensnare their prey.

[@davidsalazar13]

I’m in love with the seahorses.

[@tylerharder4320]

Sea horse sea hell

[@davidsalazar13]

@@tylerharder4320 not my chair. not my problem.

[@WanderTheNomad]

Today I Learned, seahorses are related to pipe fish and trumpet fish. Edit: and that the males of all of these species are the ones who give birth

[@birdgirl8390]

yeah I've always been taught that only the seahorse does that. Kinda baffling to know that an entire species is capable of male pregnancy.

[@erichtomanek4739]

Sometime in the future: Millions of years ago one and only one species of Sea Horse (the only vertebrate) was introduced to the Mega Boreal Sea of Mars. Now, let's view the result.

[@rng8899]

Spot the Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds reference!

[@andyjay729]

Yep, you heard the man right. Tuna are indeed closer related to seahorses than to, say, salmon or swordfish. Talk about divergent AND convergent evolution. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percomorpha

[@jesper112183]

I live in Louisiana and was recently cast netting at an in shore salt marsh when I pulled up a pipe fish. I had never seen a wild seahorse before, so I was surprised to find one so far from the ocean.

[@lapsstudent]

Wild seahorse?

[@Cillana]

@@lapsstudent vs one in an aquarium

[@lapsstudent]

@@Cillana I forgot that this comment existed but thanks for the reply

[@creepingslaytor6073]

Sea horses are one of those real life creatures that just seem science fiction

[@galacticaphant0m]

You’re science fiction

[@Apokalypse456]

well real life does give us more than enough "alien" lifeforms. Bobbit worms, Antlions, Lionfish

[@stormevans6897]

When I was a little kid we had a pair of sea horses in our aquarium, always thought there was something magical about them.

[@sephikong8323]

I'd like to know at which point someone was like "yeah, I have a pretty functioning body plan, so let's just throw it out and make a terrible one and be forever stuck at the bottom of any viability ranking in the ocean"

[@WanderTheNomad]

I think It's Okay To Be Smart has a video relevant to this titled "What is Impossible in Evolution?"

[@sephikong8323]

@VINCENTNATTI Pretty sure they should by all accounts have already gone extinct due to how incredibly stupid like ........ *all* of their evolutionary choices are, the fact they still haven't gone extinct is the baffling part, just like the Panda and the Koala

[@doggo7078]

I found Tierzoo's alt account. Where's the worm tierlist Tierzoo. Is being a Tapeworm not a funny enough gameplay style?

[@wormthirtyfour]

shush

[@theluftwaffle1]

Clearly they survived because of their good parenting skills.

[@themockingdragon135]

Seahorses are the fish equivalent of sloths.

[@doggo7078]

tell that to the giant sea sloth

[@themockingdragon135]

@@doggo7078 I mean modern day sloths. I'm aware there were prehistoric ocean going sloths.

[@stefanostokatlidis4861]

More like chameleons and a few species of slow-moving geckos.

[@themockingdragon135]

@@stefanostokatlidis4861 chameleons maybe given the specially adapted mouthparts and that they're technically carnivores. But bear in mind that they mostly change colour to display their mood, not camouflage. Sloths grow algae on their fur to be greener, are incredibly slow, and the only thing about them that's particularly strong is what's holding them in place. They draw a lot of parallels with seahorses here.

[@ugly717]

Seahorses are in my opinion the strangest creatures widely known

[@Zveebo]

100%. They’re one of these animals we’re incredibly lucky to exist at the same time as, because if they were extinct we’d be blown away to imagine such an odd creature existing.

[@michaelblevins1651]

Ahem jellyfish

[@terdragontra8900]

@@michaelblevins1651 was just about to say the same thing

[@bingolingo6555]

@@michaelblevins1651 They're not that weird

[@terdragontra8900]

@@bingolingo6555 their larva are stationary polyps on the seabed that repeatedly grow little jellyfish that pop off them

[@samsalamander8147]

You could have easily lied to me and told me they were Arthropods and I would have believed you. I had no idea they were fish and I feel foolish for never thinking about it before.

[@dominikcobb1355]

A truly strange, bizarre, and absolutely beautiful creature, yet isn’t that true for all life?

[@Andreas_42]

May I assume that you never have seen a picture of a naked mole-rat? I would give it the points for strange and bizarre, but not for beautiful. 😉

[@dominikcobb1355]

@@Andreas_42 yeah it’s beautiful.

[@Gingerbreadley]

Fuck yeah seahorses. -me seeing this apparently

[@bendirval3612]

Seahorses may be the only ones where the males carry the young in their pouch, but there are a number of species that delegate care of the eggs or young to the male. The unique adaptation is the pouch.

[@Devo491]

The megapodes, mound-building birds of Australasia, also 'hand-off' the young to the males. The male builds a big compost-heap in which the eggs are incubated, and the female contributes nothing (except a massive egg) to the process. The male works tirelessly through the summer to maintain just the right temperature in the mound, and when the chicks hatch, they dig their way out of the mound, and are completely independent from day one. Isn't nature wonderful?!

[@RainAngel111]

They're so cute and I hope they live forever

[@Manofthewoods.]

Been looking forward to another video

[@hodanisbased4980]

What I find extremely funny is the fact that AVNJ, a ichthyologist who makes fish content on YT, is completely baffled by the fact that sea horses even exist.

[@mrs.schmenkman]

Is it really a pregnancy? Do the eggs actually require additional nutrients? Aren't fish eggs complete. Once fertilized? Do other fish have actual pregnancies? I am not clear whether they are simply protecting the eggs or actually nursing them.

[@lexprontera8325]

An ambush predator in a dense vegetation habitat camouflaged by plant mimicry that catches small arthropods in one quick move. So...... the seahorse is the mantis of the ocean.

[@petersmythe6462]

Imagine if seahorses evolved to hunt larger prey? Like, just this giant snoot coming up from the deep to suck sea birds off the surface or something.

[@Barakon]

Whoever said seahorses are F tier wasn’t charting animals based off of how successful they are but by how fun they are to play.

[@mds_main]

AVNJ's favourite fish 😂

[@vincentx2850]

The idea that seahorses are closely related to stickleback is now proven to be outdated, and is in fact the result of convergent evolution. Syngnathiformes now contains things like flying gurnards, dragonets, goatfish, sea moth and sand burrowers, and some of them are closer related to sea horses than trumpetfish. This means that the similarity between trumpetfish and sea horses is in fact the result of parallel evolution.

[@vincentx2850]

Also the closest relatives of Syngnathiformes is in fact Scombrimorformes, the order that contains tuna and mackerel. This means that a group of fish that could barely swim is a close cousin of the most powerful swimmers of the sea. A similar story can be found in Carangimorphariae, which contains marlins and flatfish.

[@vincentx2850]

Sticklebacks are now recognized as crown Perciformes, close relatives of other scaleless members of the group such as eelpouts and sculpins

[@aaronacuna5381]

Buenas, comentario en español

[@ellyketchum3290]

What I am still puzzled about is the evolutionary process it took to "switch places" regarding the pregnancy part... Since all evolution starts with tiny tiny differences in one or a few individuals I always wonder how such tiny differences could/can prove to have such a big impact. Big enough to help those individuals survive. How did the male pouch start to evolve since obviously they originally did not have a hole there. And all the way to supplying nutrients from within the pouch, having "contractions" etc. It's so amazing and I can't grasp the time and thousands or millions of generations it takes to be "evolution"

[@optillian4182]

Don't mind me, I'm just looking for triggered creationists in the comment section.

[@birdwatchingwithdrrajasaur4410]

When I was was little I used to think they are mythical / fairytale creatures like unicorns, dragons and fairies!

[@syntheticsimpshrimp]

Notification squad reporting in

[@rursus8354]

The horses, on the other hand, has female pregnancy. But they don't eat crustaceans.

[@RedSquirrelHunter]

How do the males supply the fertilized eggs with nutrients?

[@bazpearce9993]

A quick search said it uses a placenta. But a different kind than humans.

[@blarpnarp]

something tells me that far in the future someones gonna find a seahorse fossil and think it swam like a regular fish

[@noytelinu]

I so hope for Finding Nemo 3 to deal with this and Clownfish.

[@Chordus_Gaius]

Sea horses are really cool

[@OstblockLatina]

I've always had a problem with calling it "male pregnancy". The developing offspring doesn't take any nutrients, blood or oxygen from the male organism. It's just growing in the eggs that are being stored in male's cavity. It's not really pregnancy. It's like if human fathers would carry the fetuses of growing babies that already got everything they need for their development until birth in backpacks. Sure that would be some weight to carry around and responsible task to not get oneself killed along with the fetus, but it's not the same, and not even partially as exhausting for the grown-up's body as a mammal pregnancy (and birthing of the child) is for the female.

[@LoveYourself-my9nz]

Egg got fertilized in the male seahorse and it provides all the nutrients which are needed for fetus development. Female only transfer her eggs to the male pounch and then all the process happen there.

[@VilcxjoVakero]

'Despite their strange appearance, they are actually just fish, and their ancestors dating back many millions of years ago would have been completely recognizable as regularly-shaped fish' - also true of regular horses

[@fwogboi]

We are all fish 🙂

[@FloozieOne]

This was a great episode. I've always been fascinated by seahorses, their shape and manner of swimming is so strange, but they are wonderfully graceful doing it. The relationships between the different members of this family is also amazing; that they have male pregnancy, are ambush predators (which I never would have thought of, I thought they were vegetarians!) The "suck-'em-up" style of eating is used by other creatures, but not the sneak attack as well. Thanks a bunch for this most entertaining and educational video.

[@Eliza-xd5ck]

Now wondering why other species don't have male pregnancy, when you explain it like that it seems very sensible

[@northcroft13]

I have a dentistry exam in 7 hours why tf am i watching this

[@conflicatuzed]

anyone notice the glitch in the middle of the video, or am I too high

[@Bcso591]

Literally started researching seahorses on the net today, and I find this video uploaded just yesterday. What a lovely coincidence.

[@GabyGeorge1996]

Seahorses are the hummingbirds of the sea. Got it.

[@bunkayke2554]

YEESSS NEW VIDEO!! Hope you're doing great!

[@jakeschindler1762]

Nice video, hope all of you are having a great day. Keep moving forward, and succeed.

[@Dr.Ricebowl76]

Hey I got a video idea. Evolution of turkeys or chickens

[@quintenwhyte6660]

Perfect for Thanksgiving Special

[@cosmo6122]

Love this channel

[@quitlife9279]

Good overview, but there are some inaccuracies and poor explanations in the video, 5:55 "the only group of animals known to breed in this way". Plenty of male animals carry their eggs on them, there are many mouth-brooding fish and other animals like as the giant water bugs and suriname toad that have males carries eggs on them. Some things could be explained better, like 4:48 seahorses being upright DOES NOT give them more REACH than if they're horizontal, i think you meant higher hunting success rate as they can't afford to miss prey as much being largely immobile.

[@ledwards7171]

Love these guys so much i have one tattooed on my ankle!💕

[@rabsrabble5415]

Jabba the Hutt should've been a sea horse.

[@laurachapple6795]

Seahorses are one of those things that seem totally commonplace but then you think about them for a while, and eventually you find yourself wondering what the heck aliens are going to look like when life here on *earth* can be so totally weird.

[@Apokalypse456]

We have enough life that is arguably "alien" to us already! Bobbit worms, Antlions, stick insects. Imagine any of those just bigger and they would fit perfectly well into any sci-fi movie

[@UATU.]

Wonderful video. I have always loved seahorses and sea dragons. They are as dorky as they are beautiful.

[@lexibyday9504]

Sea horses are really more like sea kangaroos

[@williampulfer-melville8536]

Could you please make a video on the evolution of hedgehogs

[@daphneloose5880]

seahorses are adorable!! I always knew that they were just fish with a different shaped body.

[@eradict]

okay, we didn't need to see how seahorses give birth 😝 lol

[@TheClintonio]

It was disgusting to see but oh well.

[@andyjay729]

I'd like to see Clint from Clint's Reptiles do something like "Seahorses are tuna?!" in his slightly unhinged presentation style.

[@ripleyandweeds1288]

i love seahorse skeletons, they look like those cheap inaccurate animal skeleton halloween decorations but they're just actually how the animal looks irl. this man is nothing but bones.

[@hamzsandwich556]

I'm gonna get high and binge all of your videos with my girlfriend

[@malcolm1148]

Seahorses are low tier trash

[@skipsterable]

Thank you. Sea Dragons are my favorite fish. Of course, it helps that the first submarine I was stationed on was SSN-584-USS Seadragon.

[@Shigeru0508]

F Tier trash - TierZoo -

[@90enemies]

All these adaptation just so they can use their tail to GRAB on things Which they wouldn't need if they can just SWIM NORMALLY

[@dumupad3-da241]

I'm not sure seahorses' 'pregnancy' is so unique. There are frog species where the male carries his offspring on/in his body (on/in his skin or in his mouth) and feeds them with his skin or secretions, AFAIR. I don't think there's a difference of principle between this sort of 'dedicated fatherhood' and male pregnancy. Exactly where in/on the body the young are kept is a detail.

[@matthewwelsh294]

They are soo damn cute 😍😍

[@realfishscience7842]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

[@Engifarting456]

how arent sea horses extinct

[@eliletts1680]

Great video! I really enjoyed watching this! 😉👍

[@knightbender2]

Sounds like Ben Thomas 🤔 Honestly though, nice videos. All of the topics are kickass

[@andrewgan557]

Sea horses are poor swimmers..... Talk about intelligent design.

[@matthewlong7547]

I don't know why I always forget that seahorses exist. They're pretty iconic animals.

[@gabr.7878]

I like seahorses

[@purobrim36XX]

at around 3;50 to 4;10 your video blinked red you trying to cause seizures out here? take it down and remove that red blink.

[@mrmosty5167]

Scientist: We could use genera such as Hippocampus, Sygnathus…or Debbie

[@xxxbbb7601]

one theory regarding male pregnancy in seahorses says that it evolved to guarantee paternity, since a female could be fertilized again by more males after mating, by carrying the eggs, each male seahorse guarantees that 100% of a females clutch are descended from him

[@danieljohnson2349]

MLM 👍

[@r4tb0y_54]

It's kinda funny how I watch videos of an fish biologist that hates seahorses for some reason, and tbh I think seadragons look cooler, but this is actually interesting

[@vladimirlagos2688]

A friend of mine has an aquarium with wild caught freshwater pipefish. They are the most charming little critters, but feeding them is a headache as per his own account as they only eat live prey that is small enough and slow enough to fit into their mouths. Also they can't share the aquarium with other fish because they are so easily bullied by others.