This is a baby Pinto Seahorse captured at the National Sea life centre in Birmingham, this is an aquarium with more than 60 displays of marine and freshwater life, it also includes a one-million-litre ocean tank that house the giant sea turtle that weigh a little over 900kgs, reef sharks and tropical reef fish.
All these ocean creatures can be viewed from a fully transparent underwater tunnel.
A unique fact about seahorses is “Its the dads who have babies”, might be a big relief for the mums!
Technical details:
Model Canon EOS 450D
Lens Sigma 50mm 2.8 EX DG Macro
Aperture Value f/2.8
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO 1600
Shutter Speed Value 1/200 sec
Flash No Flash
Colour Space sRGB
Seahorses are a genus (Hippocampus) of fish belonging to the family Syngnathidae, which also includes pipefish and leafy sea dragons. There are over 32 species of seahorse, mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world. They prefer to live in sheltered areas such as sea grass beds, coral reefs, or mangroves.
Seahorses are so named for their equine appearance. Although they are fish, they do not have scales, rather a thin skin stretched over a series of bony plates arranged in rings throughout their body. Each species has a distinct number of rings. Seahorses swim upright, another characteristic that is not shared by their fish relatives who swim horizontally. Seahorses have a coronet on their head, which is distinct to each seahorse, much like a human fingerprint. They swim very poorly by using a dorsal fin, which they rapidly flutter to propel them, and pectoral fins, located behind their eyes, which they use to steer. Because they are poor swimmers, they are most likely to be found resting in sea grasses or coral reefs with their prehensile tails wound around a stationary object. They have long snouts, which they use to suck up food, and eyes that can move independently of each other much like chameleon. Seahorses eat small shrimp, tiny fish and plankton.
Text above is from Wikipedia.
More informaiton available here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahorse
Birmingham Sea life centre
http://www.sealife.co.uk/index.php
