Pets

Male seahorses don't just look after the young they give birth to them! I think they are the only males in the animal kingdom that do this. I wonder if that makes them a mom instead of a dad . . .

My fish are in one tank, but there is a separator in the middle that keeps them apart. Wouldn't want to wake up to dead fishies :S

cemwerewolf wrote:

Male seahorses don't just look after the young they give birth to them! I think they are the only males in the animal kingdom that do this. I wonder if that makes them a mom instead of a dad . . .

Dad, becuase they still have male gamete. The Emperor Penguin, for example, sitts alone on the egg and then produces milk from a glend to feed the little penguin when it hatches - and the male penguin is still the dad as he doesn't produce the eggs. Likewise in the seahorse situtation, the female gives the eggs to the male - so it's just a case where the dad takes over the part of caring for the young.
Well, now that I think of it, from a legal humanistic side... In Croatian family law, the woman that gives birth to a child is her legal mother, it doesn't matter if the child came from her egg or not. But still there is the problem of the male seahorse not being female but then we can do like the Roman pontifices and with interpretatio come to the conclussion that to be considered a mother you have to first be female and therfore it's irrelevant if you had eggs in the first place or not. (I think it's obvious I'm in the library studying and thus inclined to rammble away and not make real sense...) :silly:

The scary thing is that it did make sense to me! I posed the question because I've had this discussion before and I was wondering what you folks would think. There is usually two schools of thought on it : either thfemale is the mom purely by virtue of being female or the male is mom since he gives birth. Just curious what other peoples thoughts would be on the matter . . .

black_magnolia wrote:

Envy wrote:

Aah..That's so strange! Do the eggs just..Float in the bubbles then? :blink:

Yes, they float. The eggs can also fall out of the nest and the male betta will retrieve them. That's also the reason why he has to be with the eggs to make new bubbles for the nest.

Other animal super dads: Giant Water Bug, Sticklebacks (a type of fish), Panamanian Poison-Arrow frog, Deer Mice, Emperor Penguins, Spotted Sandpipers (bird), Red Fox...

That's incredible! Learn something new everyday. Thanks.

Wow! I guess those are called \"fighting fish\" for a reason. I can see now why we only had one at the office.

Interesting about the seahorses as well... I seem to recall hearing that somewhere before, but I thought the person was just joking.