Slender seahorse

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Slender seahorse, also called the longsnout seahorse (Hippocampus reidi), is a small subtropical fish in the seahorse family. Males carry eggs and gestate for about two weeks before giving birth to tiny offspring. Adults grow about 17.5 cm (6.8 in) long; juveniles start around 8.2 mm. Males are usually orange and females yellow, though both can have brown or white spots that may turn pink or white during courtship. They live up to about 55 meters deep, in habitats such as coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, gorgonian corals, and Sargassum. They are found in many countries—Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, the United States (Florida and North Carolina), Venezuela—and also occur in parts of China; Brazil has a strong presence of this species. They prefer subtropical waters roughly from 29° N to 25° S and from 133° W to 40° E. The slender seahorse is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List and is in CITES Appendix II, largely due to overharvesting for trade and traditional medicine. In China they are traded for medicines and in Brazil about 25 million seahorses are traded each year.