By far the most unusual and enigmatic fish to live in the sea is the Seahorse. We are all familiar with their classic “Knight” chess-piece shape but we know very little behind their mystical charm and underwater grace. The Japanese name for Seahorse ‘TATSU NO OTOSHIGO’ meaning “Dragons Child” and gives just a little hint of the awe and mysticism that seahorses are held in.

For many of us our first memory of a Seahorse comes from our childhood. It is normally just the dried skeletal remains bought from a cheap, tacky seaside shop where these most beautiful of marine creatures sell just for a few pence each. (This practise is unfortunately still far too common). Very often they have suffered a very painful death, after being killed by drying in the boiling hot sun having being tied up by their snouts and hung until death.

Even in death they hold an amazing fascination for us, we can only stare in awe and wonder at how such a very un-fish like animal lives in the depths of the oceans.

Usually considered a shallow water species being found just a few feet below the surface, they have also been found as far down as 254’. This is just one of the many contradictions that surround seahorses.

Their name is another anomaly, they are known as “Hippocampus” which means literally “horse caterpillar” or “Horse monster” This comes from when the Victorians named many animal species with the Latin nomenclature system set up by Carlos Von Linnae. They believed that Seahorses belonged to the insects because of their hard, almost rigid bodies but they are in fact fish and a stranger one you could not possibly find.

With all the usual fishy traits such as swim bladder, gills, fins etc. they also show a number of very un-fish like characteristics, such as having skin and not scales, a prehensile tail which is quite like a monkey although their most bizarre attribute is the pouch for brooding their young, just like a Kangaroo, if this wasn’t strange enough it is the males that get pregnant not the females, a completely unique situation in the natural world. Beyond this the Seahorse has a very complex and little understood life style that we are only just starting to probe and understand.

Of the 35 to 40 (or possibly more according to the most recent studies) species worldwide they range in size from 2cm up to 40cm. Although they are often considered to be alike, Seahorse’s are in fact, all very different from each other and have differing habits, needs, and niches.

They are the inspirations of myths and legends and the supposed sources of cures by the Traditional Chinese Medicine Trade for all manner of Ills, impotency, and ailments. It is so important to the traditional medicine trade that in excess of 30 million are collected each year. Far too many to allow even the Seahorse with its prodigious breeding abilities to survive.

As well as the Traditional Medicine Trade there are two other trades that effect seahorses and these are the curio and aquarium trades each of which takes a million seahorses a year. The aquarium trade is particularly a worry for British Seahorses and the work of the survey will help to protect them from being taken from the wild as pets.

Most of the species are on the International Union of Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Animals, listed as vulnerable although sadly and more worryingly some of the species such as the Knysna Seahorse (Hippocampus capensis) have been upgraded to Endangered status. A sad indictment, of the little regard, that is given to the natural world even when it is threatened.

We know very little about Seahorses but due to the mystical element attributed to them and their very cryptic way of living we may find several species going extinct and some pushed to the verge of extinction before we discover all there is to know about them, if we ever do.

Through the work of the survey we are starting to build an amazing picture of British Seahorses and by working with others we can share information and protect our amazing “horses” of the sea.