Please note that the version published in Europe by Ivy Press is now out of print, so we are offering the version published in the US by The University of Chicago Press.
Seahorses are extraordinary creatures. They swim upright and spend days in dancing courtship. They are small, shy and have heads shaped like miniature ponies. And the male carries the female's eggs in his pouch and 'births' the young. Found worldwide, they are sensitive to environmental disruption and are an obvious flagship group for conservation. Seahorses unveils every species, including the seadragons and pipefish that share the Syngnathidae family. Each of the 47 entries incorporates a photograph and description, so you can admire their beauty as you learn about their ecological importance.
INTRODUCING SEAHORSES
WHAT ARE SEAHORSES?
Horses of the Sea
The family Syngnathidae
Myths and Legends
MORPHOLOGY
Adaptations of head
Bony plates
Prehensile tail
Fins
Pouch
Internal organs
Camouflage
LIFE HISTORY & BEHAVIOUR
Life-span
Holdfasts
Home ranges
Feeding
Predators
COURTSHIP & REPRODUCTION
Pair bonds & Greetings
Courtship & Mating
Eggs, Pregnancy & Birth
Seahorse Offspring
DISTRIBUTION
Habitats
Map of distribution
Dispersal
Molecular evidence
EVOLUTION
Fossil evidence
Genetics and phylogeny
Major clades within Hippocampus
Morphological changes
TRADE
Traditional Medicine
Aquaria
Curios
Sources
CONSERVATION
Seahorses as flagships
Population declines
Destructive fishing
Livelihoods and conservation
Aquaculture
IUCN Red List
CITES and national legislation
Project Seahorse
iSeahorse
How you can help
THE SPECIES
SEAHORSES
Introduction to the Species
Pygmy seahorses
H. bargibanti
H. colemani
H. denise
H. pontohi
H. satomiae
H. waleananus
Temperate Australasian species
H. abdominalis
H. breviceps
Spiny, striped-snout clade
H. angustus
H. barbouri
H. comes
H. histrix
H. jayakari
H. procerus
H. subelongatus
H. whitei
Three-spot seahorses
H. camelopardalis
H. planifrons
H. trimaculatus
Japanese miniatures
H. coronatus
H. mohnikei
H. sindonis
Semi-spiny H. kuda relatives
H. kelloggi
H. spinosissimus
Hippocampus kuda clade
H. algiricus
H. borboniensis
H. capensis
H. fisheri
H. fuscus
H. ingens
H. kuda
H. reidi
Basal kuda-oid species
H. guttulatus
Hippocampus erectus clade
H. erectus
H. hippocampus
H. patagonicus
Species of uncertain placement
H. debelius
H. jugumus
H. minotaur
H. montebelloensis
H. paradoxus
H. pusillus
H. tyro
H. zebra
H. zosterae
A SELECTION OF SEAHORSE RELATIVES
GASTROPHORI: TRUNK-BROODING PIPEFISH
Nerophis ophidion
Doryrhamphus excisus [or D. dactyliophorus]
UROPHORI: TAIL-BROODING PIPEFISH
Halicampus macrorhynchus
Trachyrhamphus longirostris
Syngnathus acus
Corythoichthys intestinalis
SEADRAGONS & PIPEHORSES
Haliichthys taeniophorus
Phycodurus eques
Phyllopteryx taeniolatus
Solegnathus spinosissimus
Syngnathoides biaculeatus
PYGMY PIPEHORSES
Acentronura tentaculata
Idiotropiscus lumnitzeri
Kymenoichthys rumengani
REFERENCES & FURTHER READING
Table of meristic counts
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sara Lourie (Vermont, USA) worked on the award-winning BBC film Secret Lives of Seahorses, and has been a research associate on Project Seahorse for the last eight years. She co-authored the Global Identification Guide to Seahorses and has identified and described multiple new pygmy seahorse species.
– Won the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Awards, awarded by Choice Magazine.
"Seahorses are the most un-fishlike of all fishes, with their horse-like heads, prehensile tails, and near absence of fins. This guide covers every one of the 42 known species of seahorses, plus 15 additional relatives, including the seadragon. In addition to beautiful color photographs of all but the rarest species, the descriptions nicely summarize what is known about the distribution, reproduction, and identifying characters of each. The really striking feature, however, is an elegantly simple one: inclusion of a life-sized shadow/silhouette of each species. It is rather astounding to see that some of the pygmy seahorses are literally no larger than the average housefly! [...] Highly recommended."
– Choice