How is it that people have determined that MALE seahorses carry the babies?

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By definition, wouldn’t we just say that the pregnant partner in a species is the female? Is there another step I’ve missed?

In: Biology

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Look at it like kangaroos. If the males had a pouch and carried the young after they were born (laid) you wouldn’t say the males gave birth. I think it’s the fact that it’s eggs that’s throwing you off. Change it to newborn babies and mammals and it makes much more sense why the male is still the male. With the seahorses the female just sticks them to the male instead of to a rock or letting them float away.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Females produce eggs, males produce sperm. With seahorses the female lays the eggs in a pouch on the male’s bellies.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The sex occurs as usual for a fish, then the eggs are deposited in the male sea horses pouch where they are then fertilised.

Otherwise, the sea horses gonads are typical of any other fish species, where the females have ovaries which produce eggs and the males have testes which produce sperm that fertilises the eggs.

Anonymous 0 Comments

By definition, the female partner is the one that provides the egg for sexual reproduction, and the male provides the sperm.

In seahorses, instead of the egg being laid out onto a rock or held inside the female, it is implanted into a sac on the male body, where it is fertilized by the male directly.