Meeting with seahorses...

Today I would like to present you to a cute little underwater creature. The seahorses are mostly known because of the fact that the male one is swimming around with a huge belly, as he is the one getting pregnant. They swim upright unlikely to other fishes (of their class: "pipefishes") by using smal fins (dorsal and pectoral).

Nowadays the population of seahorses is extremely endangered due to their usage in Chinese medicine. Around 20 million have been captured and dried every year. Indonesians and Central Filipinos use them also for medicinal purposes. The international seahorse export and import convention (signed in 2004) does not help to protect them fully as Japan, Indonesia, Norway and South Korea have chosen to opt out from it.

The two seahorses you see here I have encountered in the marine Park Iles de Pigeon in Guadeloupe...