''Hippocampus haema'', the Korean seahorse, is a
seahorse
A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or " ...
of the family
Syngnathidae
The Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons (''Phycodurus'' and ''Phyllopteryx''). The name is derived from grc, σύν (), meaning "together", and (), meaning "jaw". The fused jaw is one of the tra ...
native to the northern
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
(
Korea Strait
The Korea Strait is a sea passage in East Asia between Korea and Japan, connecting the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The strait is split by the Tsushima Island into the Western Channel and t ...
and
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...
), and it usually lives in ''
Sargassum
''Sargassum'' is a genus of brown (class Phaeophyceae) macroalgae (seaweed) in the order Fucales. Numerous species are distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world, where they generally inhabit shallow water and coral re ...
'' and weeds on shallow soft bottom habitats from 0 to 18 m depth.
The Korean seahorse is the most common seahorse in Korean waters so that the scientific name 'haema' is named from 'seahorse' in Korean. The Japanese name 'Himetatsu' is derived from its smaller shape such as body and coronet rather than the shape of a
sister species
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree.
Definition
The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram:
Taxon A and t ...
,
crowned seahorse (''Hippocampus coronatus'').
This species had been repeatedly misidentified as
crowned seahorse and
Shiho's seahorse before a taxonomic review. However, the two genuine species do not live in Korean waters, therefore this species was handled by naming a new scientific name, ''Hippocampus haema''.
It can grow to lengths of 11 centimeters, but more commonly 6 to 8 centimeters as adult. Namely, the length of juvenile is 1 to 5 centimeters, whereas and the lengths of males and females reaching sexual maturity are considered as ca. 5 centimeters with or without male brood pouch.
However, sex determination of this species is considered as ca. 2 centimeters from anatomic examination of
gonad
A gonad, sex gland, or reproductive gland is a mixed gland that produces the gametes and sex hormones of an organism. Female reproductive cells are egg cells, and male reproductive cells are sperm. The male gonad, the testicle, produces sper ...
.
This species has
sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...
, the difference is male has a longer tail, while female has a longer trunk for same size. Breeding season of this species is from May to November (7 months), relating to warm water temperature.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q47457282
haema
Fish of Korea
Marine fauna of East Asia
Taxa named by Hiroshi Senou
Fish described in 2017