Rare seahorses arrive at the Roundhouse Aquarium
by Mark McDermott Giant seahorses are not easy to find. This is both because they are considered vulnerable to extinction and because, as a so-called “ambush species,” they specialize at hiding. The seahorses are adept at camouflage, disappearing into eelgrass beds as they wait for their next meal. The species, known technically as Hippocampus ingens and also as the Pacific seahorse, is so seldom seen along this coast that when biologists with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife found one in a restored eelgrass bed in Upper Newport Bay in 2016, it was the first sighting there in more than 15 years — and only about the tenth recorded in the region since the 1800s. Two more turned up at those same beds, in 2019 and 2021. Aquariums have had to rely on luck. In 2015, researchers trawling Southern California waters happened to net two pregnant males — yes, in this species the males carry the young — and donated them to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro. Then, in the spring of 2025, luck struck twice in a single afternoon. Dr. Ralph Appy, a parasitologist, was netting rays and skates off Coronado Island with Occidental College students, harvesting parasites for research. One…
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