Male Seahorses Are Nature’s Mr. Mom, Researchers Say

Male seahorses are nature’s real-life Mr. Moms — they take fathering to a whole new level: Pregnancy.

Although it is common for male fish to play the dominant parenting role, male pregnancy is a complex process unique to the fish family Syngnathidae, which includes pipefish, seahorses and sea dragons. Texas A&M University evolutionary biology researcher Adam Jones and colleagues in his lab are studying the effects of male pregnancy on sex roles and sexual selection of mates and are trying to understand how the novel body structures necessary for male pregnancy evolved. By doing this, the researchers hope to gain a better understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for changes in the structure of organisms over time.

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Tags: Evolutionary Biology, Fish, Pipefish, Pregnancy, Sea Dragons, Seahorses, Sexual Selection, Syngnathidae, Texas A&M University