Seahorse World

Our last outing in Tasmania was on the way to catch the ferry to Melbourne. We stopped of at 'Beauty Point' (although today was too windy to admire any beauty) at Seahorse World and Platypus House. I love sea horses, so it was great to see so many of them up close, and you'll see lots of photos below. Perhaps they'll be my next pet...!!

Pot-bellied Seahorse
The big-belly seahorse or pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, is one of the largest seahorse species in the world with a length of up to 35 cm, and is the largest in Australia.

The Slender Seahorse
Grows to 15cm and lives at least 50m deep, usually clinging on to slender sponges or sea fans.
Often spotted with a brown colour, with numerous small white dots on its body. The slender seahorse are pair bonded in the wild. On average, the male will give birth to between 50-400 perfect miniature replicas of the parents. There have been reports of births up to 1,572!

Leafy Seadragons

Weedy Seadragon
Grows to 45cm in length. Generally coloured orange-red with iridescent blue/purple stripes along their chest with many white spots and yellow markings.

Sea Horse world breeds seahorses for sale all over the world, so although the beginning of the tour showed a selection of breeds in display tanks, the tour continued to the breeding area, which was incredible - so many seahorses!! The breeding tanks were mostly potbellied.

Giant Cuttlefish
The largest species in the world and the most common in Australian waters, grows to 1m. Using cells known as chromatophores they can change colour instantaneously. They can also raise parts of this skin to change shape and texture to mimic rock, sand or seaweed. All cuttlefish have white coloured cuttlebone inside their body used to control buoyancy. Teeth marks from dolphins, seals and sharks can often be seen in the cuttlebones washed up on beaches.

Orange Cowfish
Grow up to 15cm. Live in shallow coastal seagrass and reefs 1m to 60m deep. The makle ornate cowfish differs from the closely related Shaw’s cowfish by having a prominent ump in front of the eye, a regular arrangement of blue/black spots on the sides of their body and their tail is coloured brilliant orange with blue lines.

Port Jackson shark
Grows to 1.65m. Eats sea urchins, muscles, crustaceans and fishes. Their teethe are shaped so as to hold and break, then crush and grind up mollusc shells. The eggs are coloured brown and shaped like a spiral. Once laid, the female will take the eggs in her mouth and wedge it into a rock or crevice serving as camouflage and to avoid it washing away.

They also had a collection of other weird and wonderful sea creatures including this fish:

A box fish

A red shrimp

Giant Crabs

and a handling pool which included this long-legged crab

and these hermit crabs that weren't keen on leaving the water..