The female then swims away until the next morning, and the male returns to sucking up food through his snout.The female inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch and deposits dozens to thousands of eggs.
Molecular dating finds that pipefish and seahorses diverged during the Late Oligocene.
The male supplies the eggs with prolactin, the same hormone responsible for milk production in pregnant mammals.
The pouch provides oxygen, as well as a controlled environment incubator.
guttulatus (though literature more commonly refers to them under the synonym of H.
ramulosus), from the Marecchia River Formation of Rimini Province, Italy, dating back to the Lower Pliocene, about 3 million years ago.