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PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO BY DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER
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By Rachael Bale, ANIMALS executive editor
The head of a horse, the independent swivel-eyes of a chameleon, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the prehensile tail of a monkey: Meet the seahorse.
Oh, it also doesn’t have a stomach. Or scales. And the males give birth instead of the females (shown above).
We all know what seahorses are, Jennifer Holland writes. But we don’t really know what they’re about. Where all do they live, exactly? And how are they doing?
Not knowing these answers is a problem for a fish that’s so exploited, she says. Commercial fishing operations scoop up at least 76 million seahorses a year, and some 80 countries are involved in trading them, according to estimates from the conservation group Project Seahorse. They’re usually caught by accident—mixed in with the more valuable target fish—but then they’re set aside and dried, to be sold for traditional medicine or trinkets.
See the amazing diversity of seahorses here—and learn what we do know about seahorses.
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