Male seahorse prepares to give birth, 4 seconds later stunning phenomenon takes shape

Many people appreciate seahorse for their special look and their tiny, jewel-like stature, but there’s something else about them that makes them stand out, and it’s not something that many people know. Unlike most living creatures on Earth today, in the case of seahorses, the male is actually the one who gets pregnant and gives birth to their offspring.

Here’s how it works: the female deposits her eggs in the male’s brood pouch. Them for the entire duration of the pregnancy, the male is the one who protects and feeds the developing offspring. So you could say seahorses are some of the best, most protective dads in the animal kingdom. Their mating ritual is also pretty uncommon for the animal world, although might sound familiar to us humans. In order to get a female to mate with them, the male seahorse first has to prove that he is a good dancer. Yep, you’ve read that right! The male seahorses often approach the females by doing some sort of dancing to break the ice. If the female likes what she sees, the mating ritual continues.

If not, she’s off to the next seahorse that catches her eye on the dance-floor that is the bottom of the ocean.
Another thing worth mentioning here is that male pregnancy is an extremely very rare, occurring only in seahorses, pipefish and sea-dragons. It’s considered to be an expectation in the animal kingdom, and because this is so rare, footage that shows male seahorses actually giving birth doesn’t come around very often.
If you haven’t got your chance to watch this before, then you’re in luck, because the species of seahorses in the video below can give birth to us 1,800 babies – at once! You need to see this.

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