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The seahorse, while a fish, doesn't exactly look or act like one.
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They have a prehensile tail that can grab vegetation, a tube-shaped mouth for sucking up food, and when they have sex, it's the male that gets pregnant.
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While male pregnancy in seahorses is fairly unique in the animal kingdom, their mating ritual might sound familiar.
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They like to break the ice by doing some dancing.
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Seahorses will dance with each other for days, wrapping their tails around one another, and even changing colors in the process.
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This allows the couple to reinforce their bond and assess one another's reproductive ability.
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It also might help synchronize their movements for what comes next.
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The reproductive role-reversal is made possible in part by the male's brood pouch.
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The male will extend this pouch to impress his dance partner.
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The female seahorse will then deposit her eggs into the pouch using a protrusion from the bottom of her torso called an ovipositor.
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Once the eggs are with the male, he will fertilize them with his sperm, ensuring that he is, in fact, the father.
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His work isn't done there, however.
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The brood pouch is more than just a flap of skin to hold eggs in.
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During pregnancy, the male seahorse keeps blood flowing around the embryos,
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controls the salinity of the environment, and provides oxygen and nutrition to offspring.
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When it's time to birth his young, the male seahorse expels the newborn seahorses from his pouch using muscle contractions.
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There can be as many as 2,000 offspring, known as "fry", but many don't make it to adulthood.
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Newborn seahorses are left on their own once out of the brood pouch, and most die from predators or being whisked away by ocean currents.
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Less than five in every thousand will survive.
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Meanwhile, while the male seahorse has been busy being Mr. Mom, there are female seahorses with more eggs that are ready to be deposited.
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Some male seahorses can give birth in the morning and be pregnant by the end of the day.
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Back to the dance floor, Mr. Seahorse.
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Back to the dance floor.
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For more videos about animal dads, check out this playlist from our friends at the Dodo.
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