Mason Nistad
Common Seahorse
Hippocampus kuda
The common seahorse is small coral colored organism with a curled tail and a long skinny tubed mouth. You can find the common seahorse in shallow sea grass beds from Australia to China. The common seahorse belongs to a domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Its domain is Eukarya, its kingdom is Animalia, its phylum is Chordata, its class is Actinopterygii, its order is Syngnathiformes, its family is Syngnathidae, its genus is Hippocampus and its species is kuda. The common seahorse has bilateral symmetry. That means if you were to draw a vertical line down the center of the seahorse each side would match up perfectly. The common seahorse has many adaptations to help it survive but here are three really cool ones. The first adaptation is there small skinny tube mouth. There mouth is made so they can easily suck in on any small organisms floating around in the water. They are also able to reach far out in the water to get their food. That is a behavioral adaptation, a physical feature. The second adaptation is its curly tail, the seahorse can wrap its tail around plants while it eats to stay sturdy. This helps the seahorse because they are actually not very good swimmers and holding on to sea grass helps them not float away as they eat. The last adaptation is the eyes of the common seahorse. The eyes are able to move in different directions to help the common seahorse watch out for predators and to find food easier. An interesting fact about the common seahorse or any seahorse is that they have a better chance if surviving BECAUSE of their poor swimming abilities. Their bad swimming abilities prevents the seahorse from leaving its home , which also keeps it away from predators. The common seahorse can be eaten by penguins, fish and people. The common seahorse’s diet consist of small organisms like plankton, fish, shrimp and copepods. The common seahorse is a heterotrophic organism. That means it gets it's energy from eating other heterotrophs and autotrophs. The common seahorse is a ectothermic organism because it is cold blooded, which means its body temperature varies depending on the temperature in its environment.
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