A Sea Horse’s Camouflage Is Born
For most kinds of animals, the females give birth to their
young. But pygmy sea horses are different. The male
usually carries sea horse eggs in a pouch. The baby
pygmies hatch in the pouch and then enter the water.
These babies aren’t born brightly colored like coral.
They’re a dull brown. They don’t have round bumps on
them either. But that changes once they choose their coral
home. Slowly, their body color begins to match the color of
the coral. They grow bumps to match the coral too!
Pygmy sea horses are so well camouflaged
that scientists didn’t know about them
until recently. They only discovered the
animals while studying sea fans in a lab.
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