Seahorses and their close relatives,
Seahorse fathers break all the rules—they're the onces who get pregnant and give birth. After the seahorse mother deposits her eggs into the father's pouch, the father fertilizes the eggs and incubates them until he gives birth to the tiny, fully-formed seahorses. This happens after about 20 to 28 days of pregnancy.
In the entire animal kingdom, male seahorses (and their close relatives) are the only male animals that undergo pregnancy and give birth to offspring.
After he has given birth, the seahorse dad does nothing more for his babies. They must look after themselves and hide from predators, as they have no parents to protect them. The seahorse father does not eat until several hours after he has given birth.
The most distinguishing difference between male and female seahorses is the male broodpouch located beneath his abdomen along the front side of his tail. The male's broodpouch is where the male seahorse fertilizes eggs and carries seahorse fry. You heard it right, male seahorses actually get pregnant and gives birth!
Yes, a male giving birth—painful contractions and all. Turns out, when it comes to seahorses, males are actually the ones that become pregnant and carry the babies.
Answer and Explanation: Seahorses are not one of those animals who change their sex. The female lays the eggs and the male carries the fertilized eggs on his back. They remain male and female.
A pregnant dad gestating up to 1,000 babies
This organ is called the brood pouch, in which the embryos develop. The female deposits eggs into the male's pouch after a mating dance and pregnancy lasts about 30 days.
Their genomes are simply too different to come together and make something that will live. Their genomes cannot mix in any productive way. Imagine you take the instructions for making an airplane and instructions for making a curling iron and mix them together.
Many species of fish, like the kobudai, are known as “sequential hermaphrodites”: they can switch sex permanently at a specific point in their lives. The majority of “sequential hermaphrodites” are known as “protogynous” (Greek for “female first”): they switch from female to male.
Could we mate with other animals today? Probably not. Ethical considerations preclude definitive research on the subject, but it's safe to say that human DNA has become so different from that of other animals that interbreeding would likely be impossible.
The Australian three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis) is doubly remarkable: Not only can it both lay eggs and bear live young, but it can do both within a single litter of offspring.
The gastric-brooding frog is the only known frog to give birth through its mouth. According to researchers at the University of South Wales, the frog lays eggs but then swallows them.
From emperor penguins to owl monkeys, fathers put in a lot of effort to raise their young—despite being overshadowed by moms. In the realm of animal parenting, dads don't get as much love as moms.
Hermaphroditic animals—mostly invertebrates such as worms, bryozoans (moss animals), trematodes (flukes), snails, slugs, and barnacles—are usually parasitic, slow-moving, or permanently attached to another animal or plant.
The female seahorse deposits her eggs into the male seahorse's brood pouch, where they are fertilized. The male protects, aerates and osmoregulates the developing embryos through pregnancy before releasing them as independent young (Stölting & Wilson, 2007; Vincent & Sadler, 1995; Whittington & Friesen, 2020).
The authors of the study speculate that the frogs are instead reacting to local changes in temperature or other environmental factors. As far as they know, frogs can only change sex during their tadpole phase.
Seahorses and their close relatives, sea dragons, are the only species in which the male gets pregnant and gives birth. Male seahorses and sea dragons get pregnant and bear young—a unique adaptation in the animal kingdom.
Most wild seahorses (here the thorny seahorse Hippocampus histrix ) are monogamous and some species mate for life. Searching for mates can be difficult and risky since seahorses are poor swimmers, found in low densities and rely on camouflage to hide from predators.
It depends on the individual animal and the specific situation in which it is giving birth. However, it is generally accepted that animals do experience pain during childbirth. This is because childbirth is a highly stressful event for both the mother and the baby.
How long do they live? The natural lifespans of seahorses are virtually unknown, with most estimates coming from captive observations. Known lifespans for seahorse species range from about one year in the smallest species to an average of three to five years for the larger species.
After an elaborate courtship “dance,” females deposit their eggs into a male's brood pouch, where he fertilizes them. As the embryos grow, the male's abdomen becomes distended, just as in a human pregnancy. When he is ready to give birth, the abdomen opens, and contractions expel the juvenile seahorses.
Unlike most animals, it is the male seahorse that gives birth. A female seahorse places up to 2,000 eggs inside a pouch on the male's abdomen. The eggs grow there for two to four weeks. As the eggs develop, the father barely moves.