Welcome to the Marine Mili series, a regular column about all things marine!  During this series I aim to inspire people to want to protect our oceans and all the marine life that call our oceans home. Hopefully after reading each column, you would have learnt something new, including what we can do to help protect and preserve our oceans. You can follow me and my journey on my Instagram page: _marine_mili. 
 

Have you ever heard of males giving birth to their young?  In the seahorse species, and their close relatives sea dragons, the males carry the eggs. 

Females will inject the eggs into the male’s brood pouch which is a specialised structure designed to hold and incubate the eggs.  Once the female injects eggs into the male, the male will then fertilise them and incubate them for about 30 days. The male will provide nutrients for roughly 1000 embryoids. 

Big-belly Seahorses got their name from having plump big bellies, and they are called seahorses as their head resembles the head shape of a horse.

This species is one of two in Port Phillip Bay. The other is the Shorthead Seahorse. 

The Big-belly Seahorse is one of the largest species of seahorses in the world, and can grow up to 35-centimetres in length.

Big-belly Seahorses live in Port Phillip Bay and can be found under piers all along the Mornington Peninsula.

They are often found holding onto something solid with their tails so they can stay in one spot, as seahorses are poor swimmers. This makes it easier for them to eat and helps them not float away with the currents. 

This species' diet mainly consists of small crustaceans including copepods which are microscopic crustaceans and zooplankton, as seahorse snouts can only suck up their food (with a flick of their head). They don’t have any teeth to chew, so they swallow their prey whole.  

This species has a few natural predators including Australian salmon, Little Penguins, flathead and a few seabird species that call the Great Southern Reef home.