Experience myth and magic of seahorses

Imagine an animal with a horse-like head; a long snout; a looping prehensile tail and bony plates of armor. While that may sound like something out of a fairytale, seahorses are not mythical beings, but beautiful, living creatures that can be found in habitats all over the world.

Explore the worlds of seahorses, seadragons and pipefish at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga’s new gallery, “Seahorses: Beyond Imagination.”

From tiny dwarf seahorses less than an inch in length to giant Pacific seahorses that can grow to be nearly a foot long, these animals challenge the conventional idea of what a fish should look like. And yes, seahorses are fish, and so are the other-worldly seadragons with their leafy flowing appendages.

“These marvels of nature will intrigue and delight visitors with their surprising appearances and behaviors,” said Thom Demas, Aquarium senior aquarist. “Contrary to popular belief, seahorses are really fish, complete with gills and fins, that have existed for millions of years.”

Highlights of the seahorse gallery include the rarely displayed weedy and leafy seadragons. These unusual seahorse cousins look like fairytale dragons, floating through the water with leaf-like “wings.” These flowery appendages provide excellent camouflage in their native Australian kelp beds.

Other exotic gallery inhabitants include yellow seahorses; aptly named pot-bellied seahorses; lined seahorses and several species of pipefish, including voracious alligator pipefish and the striking bluestripe pipefish.

Seahorses, seadragons and pipefish are all members of the family Syngnathidae and share several traits. In all species, males carry the babies. They also have eyes that can move independently of each other, have bony plates instead of scales, share the same snout-like feeding mechanism and have no true stomachs.

While they may appear docile, they are ravenous eaters and consume lots of zoo plankton, sucking it through their toothless trumpet-shaped mouths.

Visitors to the gallery travel to a lush Tasmanian kelp bed, a colorful Galapagos reef wall, the Florida Keys, a portion of the Chesapeake Bay and a reef edge in the Philippines to meet animals that live in these very different habitats. Information panels will give children and adults a chance to discover fascinating facts about each animal and high-resolution video will showcase some of the unusual behaviors and adaptations of these fantastic creatures.

Admission to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga is $12.95 per adult and $6.95 per child, ages 3 to 12. Advance tickets may be purchased online at www.tnaqua.org or by phone at 1-800-262-0695.