Exhibit manager Clare Rugg said: “We have kept Australian seahorses here for some time, which has helped us develop our husbandry skills. We hope having these amazing creatures here will highlight the fact that this species is found in the Bay, right under our noses!”

The twelve seahorses have come from London Zoo, where they were bred. The six males and six females will be on show in the Local Coasts area.

Clare: “It is important to have them here as they are part of a native seahorse breeding program. We hope in due course to breed them at Living Coasts. This species can be found here in the Bay, which is why we need to protect our seagrass beds. ”

The Latin for seahorse - hippocampus - means "horse caterpillar". Although they don’t look like it, seahorses are fish. They live in water, breath using gills and have swim bladders. They have excellent eyesight and long, thin snouts which they use to probe into nooks and crannies for food, which they suck up like vacuum cleaners.

Seahorses pair for life and reinforce their pair bonding first thing every morning with an elaborate courtship display that can involve changing colour and spiraling around each other for up to an hour. Imagine doing that each morning before you go to work!

Native to the Mediterranean and the western coasts of Europe, the short-snouted seahorse is classified as Data Deficient on the IUCN Red List and is listed on Appendix II of CITES.

They are found in shallow inshore waters. It is thought that they could be susceptible to coastal development and to getting caught in fishing nets.