Coelomic ultrasound and echocardiography (5.5-7 MHz phased array probe; Aloka ProSound Alpha 7, Hitachi, Troy, MI; placed on the ventral
brood pouch) were performed.
The seahorse is unique in the animal kingdom in that it is the male rather than the female which carries the babies and gives birth to them via a special
brood pouch on their stomach.
In the summer, when food is plentiful, females lay eggs that quickly develop into other females-replicas of their mothers, and hatch out in the female's
brood pouch before swimming away.
The female Argonauta uses specially adapted tentacles to secrete a paper-thin case or
brood pouch of calcite to hold and protect her eggs.
Like other peracarid crustaceans, including the Gammaridea and Isopoda, adult Caprellidea females have a
brood pouch on their thoracic segments into which eggs are released.
FASCINATING FACT Daddy penguin balances the egg on his foot and keeps it warm with his
brood pouch (a layer of skin and feathers).
Nomenclature pertaining to principal body and tail ridges follows Dawson (1985) and that pertaining to
brood pouch morphology follows Herald (1959).
The male then fertilizes the eggs, and the
brood pouch - which consists of two flaps - glues itself together in the middle.
Oostegites almost completely enclosing
brood pouch; oostegite 1 (Fig.
Her eggs are deposited in his
brood pouch, where he hangs onto them for two to four weeks until they hatch.
"With seahorses, during mating, the female inserts her eggs into a
brood pouch in the male, who fertilises and incubates the eggs, which hatch several weeks later as tiny seahorse fry.