The sea-horse or hippocampus looks like some mythical creature - head not unlike that of a horse, but the rest of it a scaly, crustacean body ending in a hugely curved tail. The whole is not more than three inches long. It rides upright. Mostly found in the waters of the Far East, though also in the Mediterranean and once in a blue moon in these waters. We'll come to that. The German newspaper Die Zeit carried a long article, "Ballet on the Seabed", which tells of research and help to villagers in a village on the sea-coast of the Philippines in helping preserve this creature, by Amanda Vincent, assistant professor of environment biology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. This village was put to such straits as patrolling its shore with guns because of poachers, for harvesting the sea-horse gave them half their income. By marking out fixed territories and in general a sort of fish-farming, the tide seems to be turning.
What an odd creature. After mating, a delightful ballet-dance it is said, the female squirts her eggs into a pouch in the male, who then impregnates them and keeps them with him until the little ones are ready to go forth. She visits him daily. But apart from their value as decorations for watch-chains or earrings, the trade in their use for medical or quack reasons is enormous. The article says that at least 20 million dried sea-horses per year are sold. Live for aquariums, too. China imports around 45 tons for medical purposes. Most of these come from India, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Pliny and Elder recommended ground seahorse mixed with soda and pigfat as a cure for baldness, and The Gentleman's Magazine of England in 1753 recommended extract of sea-horse to women to increase their production of milk. In China, Japan and Korea, ground or otherwise, it is recommended as a tonic, also for sore throat, asthma, infertility, kidney and liver disorders.
Where and when does the seahorse appear here in Ireland? Rarely. On August 18th 1989 a Hippocampus ramulosus Leach (that's the full name) was found in Lough Hyne, the marine nature reserve in Co Cork. There had been only seven recordings previously around Ireland, the nearest being 1956. Mark Holmes of the Natural History Museum in Dublin, most helpful as always, thinks in future we may have more due to global warming and perhaps changing of ocean currents. Go see this one in the museum. His daughter caught it. Space runs out. We'll be back on the subject.