22 NAT GEO KIDS^ • JUNE^ /^ JULY 2022

1

Ancient

people thought

seahorses were

the babies of

sea god Poseidon’s

horses.

Funky

Fish

BY

ELIZABETH

HILFRANK

W hy seahorses and their

cousins might be the strangest

swimmers you’ve ever seen

A four-inch-long critter floats upright, nearly motionless in a patch of seagrass. Its

curvy tail, long snout, and horse-shaped head make the seahorse seem like some

pint-size mix of a monkey, a giraffe, and a pony. But this creature is a fish!

Just like goldfish and sharks, these water-

dwelling animals have fins and gills. But this

family of fish—which includes sea

dragons and pipefish—is any-

thing but ordinary. Dive in

to discover six reasons

why these creatures

might be the

funkiest fish

in the sea.

They Drop

Anchor

Fish usually swim freely

throughout the ocean,

but seahorses prefer to

be anchored. Their tails

are prehensile, meaning

they can use them to grip

and hang on to pieces of

coral, seagrass, and man-

grove roots. It’s sort of

like how monkeys use

their tails to grab

branches.

But these aren’t your

average appendages:

Seahorse tails are square,

not tube-shaped like a

monkey’s tail. “The square

tail is actually more stable

and requires less effort to

hang on than round tails

would,” marine biologist

Maarten De Brauwer says.

One seahorse

species is the

size of a grain

of rice.

DENISE’S

PYGMY

SEAHORSE