This Seahorse CSIC researcher Miquel Planas explained to Efe that they are a species threatened by climate change, overfishing and poaching, trapping more than sixty million specimens annually for use in traditional Asian medicine.
According to Planas, principal investigator in the CSIC’s Ecology and Marine Resources group, these animals are likely to have some species that cannot be found beyond the Netherlands or Great Britain, with the increase in ocean water temperatures caused by climate change. “Move further north.”
However, according to the researcher from the Supreme Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), among its biggest threats are seahorses or seahorses (hippocampus) there is an array Traditional Chinese medicine recipes to which a number of health benefits are attributed“Sometimes it has scientific justification and other times it doesn’t.”
action of the mafia
Mafias operate in areas with significant seahorse populations, such as seahorses. Peru or southern Portugal, where “the samples were illegally seized”.
“Thousands of seahorses have been captured in Spain, especially in Malaga. from illegal hunts stuffed and ready to be shipped to China for traditional medicine.”
Another danger for this species is the “anthropogenic type” destruction of its habitats, such as areas with macroalgae or marine plants such as posidonia or seagrass.
Thousands of illegally caught seahorses have been captured in Spain, especially in Malaga.
Planas explains “Every half hour, these plant communities the size of a football field are disappearing worldwide.”
To protect the species, the NGO Oceanidas project Save Little Big SeahorseWith the advice of Miquel Planas, which aims to keep current seahorse populations in the hands of a Sea Vigilante Network of more than 2,000 divers.
Andalusia and Galicia
“The Mediterranean is much more sensitive to the appearance of these animals”explains the researcher and from the Oceanids in Andalusia and also Galician Atlantic.
However, he stresses that it is “important” to continue investing in research to find out where the seahorses are, as “there are still not many observations in the Bay of Biscay,” according to the expert. species.
According to the business, currently seahorses It is not included in Spain’s catalog of threatened species due to lack of data and studies.Those who collect the status and number of specimens of species that “have been seen to have almost halved in the last fifty years.”
There are two species of seahorses in Spain, ‘Hippocampus hippocampus’ and ‘Hippocampus guttulatus’
Although it’s more than the truth 50 species of seahorses in the world -mostly in areas in the Indian and Pacific oceans- there are only two in Spain, hippocampus hippocampus And hippocampus guttulatus.
These species normally live at shallow depths of up to ten meters, but rather “can be seen up to a hundred meters in Australian waters,” he says.
One of the great curiosities that these singnathids are, the family to which seahorses belong, along with pipefish and water dragons, “They are the only species where the male looks after the eggs and embryos.They also share the work, as “the female starts producing a new batch of eggs while the male incubates the previous ones.”
ANDSeahorses live between four and five yearshowever, as their cycle occurs between spring and autumn, their reproduction is limited, and “they only lay about 350 eggs at a time,” adds the researcher.
Moreover, They are the only fish that swim vertically.They evolved this way “because it makes it easier for them to camouflage in seagrass beds,” Planas explains, adding that they have the ability to “hide and hide from their predators, often larger fish.”
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