- Pregnancy is what sets us apart from the males of the species.
It's amazing, but it's tough.
So what if we could somehow share the responsibility?
Well, these next fierce queens have found a remarkable solution.
In coastal waters around the globe,
one extraordinary family of fish
has achieved the ultimate form of gender equality.
When it comes to breeding,
seahorses do it like no other animal on the planet.
Their fierce females refuse to be left holding the baby.
So it's the males that carry their brood.
This is role reversal in the extreme.
This feisty female is a white seahorse.
And she's on an important mission.
She has a belly full of eggs
and they're ready to be fertilized.
So she needs to travel from her feeding ground to find her mate.
He's only five yards away,
but she's just four inches tall.
And hardly built for speed.
It's a treacherous journey.
But this talented lady has a trick up her sleeve.
She constantly changes her skin color to match her environment,
making her invisible at a moment's notice.
Finally, she's made it.
These hanging swim nets provide the perfect anchor point for a date.
But this isn't just a one-time thing.
White seahorses mate for life.
She visits her partner every day during the breeding season.
These rendezvous have stimulated her to grow eggs.
And now she's ready to mate.
But first, they must carry out their daily greeting ritual.
She takes the lead and entices him into a game of chase.
Once she's in the mood, she initiates courtship.
They start to move in perfect symmetry.
And as things heat up,
she flushes bright yellow with excitement.
When the time is right, they'll mate.
But here's the twist.
In every single species of seahorse,
it's not the male who impregnates the female,
it's the other way around.
Locking their bellies together,
the female gives the male her eggs.
Filling up a pouch he has hidden beneath his ribcage.
With roles reversed,
this male white seahorse stays close to home
and takes on the pregnancy.
While the female heads out to work.
Furiously feeding to make more eggs.
With a 90% strike rate,
seahorses are more effective predators than sharks.
Her hydrodynamic snout gives her stealth...
while her eyes move independently,
allowing her to look forwards and backwards at the same time.
Like a super-powered vacuum cleaner,
she sucks in her prey.
Munching up to 3000 tiny crustaceans a day.
As her eggs develop,
she still visits her mate every day during his pregnancy.
And three weeks later, he's ready to give birth.
He starts to have contractions that force open his pouch.
And like an anxious dad on a maternity ward,
she watches on.
During a 45 minute labor, this male struggles and strains
to expel up to 200
fully-formed baby seahorses.
But the female's not simply here as a birth partner.
Her appetite for sex is insatiable.
As soon as he's given birth,
she initiates courtship again.
And he willingly accepts,
offering up his empty pouch
to repeat the cycle all over again.
It's a mind bending role-reversal.
But one that comes with big benefits.
By side-stepping pregnancy,
and getting their males to take this responsibility,
these fierce queens can produce twice as many babies.
Raising up to 1000 tiny seahorses every year.
Incredible!
Seahorses really are the only species on Earth,
which have evolved this amazing biology.
Somehow a tiny fish,
reputed to just have a three-second memory,
has figured out gender equality before we have.
Who knew?