Seahorses may be cute but they're also one of the most fearsome predators in the sea, thanks to the shape of their head.
"A seahorse is one the slowest swimming fish that we know of, but it's able to capture prey that swim at incredible speeds for their size," Brad Gemmell, research associate at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, which is part of the College of Natural Sciences, said in a news release.
The marine creatures prey on small crustaceans (copepods) which are alerted by an attacker from the waves their movements create. Once the copepods feel the waves they swim away at a rate that could be compared to a six-foot-tall person swimming 2,000 miles per hour.
"Seahorses have the capability to overcome the sensory abilities of one of the most talented escape artists in the aquatic world - copepods," Gemmell said. "People often don't think of seahorses as amazing predators, but they really are."
Seahorses are able to capture their prey 90 percent of the time.
"That's extremely high," Gemmell said, "and we wanted to know why."
The team used high-speed digital 3-D holography techniques to capture the Hippocampus zosteraes seahorse's tiniest and quickest moves. The sharp images are created with a microscope, laser, and high-speed camera.
The researchers determined the seahorses have heads designed for minimal water disturbance. The animal has a "no wake zone" in front of its nostrils that allows it to grab the copepod without causing water disturbances.
Gemmell believes the seahorse's head developed that way because the organisms that could get the most prey (by having the correctly shaped head) were the most successful.
"It's like an arms race between predator and prey, and the seahorse has developed a good method for getting close enough so that their striking distance is very short," he said.
Seahorses employ a method called pivot feeding to get their prey; in this technique the critter uses suction to take in the prey. The seahorse must be extremely close to its prey in order to suck it in, but once the copepod is within the range of the seahorses suction it does not have a chance of survival.
WATCH:
