The Georgia Aquarium is celebrating a rare occurrence: a weedy sea dragon at the aquarium is pregnant.
It is only the third time ever that such a creature has been pregnant at a US aquarium, officials said.
PHOTO: AP
Sea dragons are one of the very few species in which the male carries the eggs, said Kerry Gladish, a biologist at the aquarium. Gladish said that sea horses and pipe fish males also carry eggs.
The aquarium’s sea dragon has about 70 fertilized eggs — which look like small red grapes — attached to his tail. He is expected to give birth in early to mid-July, said Gladish.
Sea dragon pregnancies are rare at aquariums because researchers don’t know what gets them in the mood to mate.
“We know there’s something biological or environmental that triggers them to want to reproduce, but in the aquarium world, we’re not sure what that is,” Gladish said.
The aquarium recently changed the lighting and thinned out the plants in the sea dragons’ tank to give them room to court each other.
The aquarium has seven of the 18-inch sea dragons, which resemble Dr Seuss characters with long aardvark-like snouts, colorful sea horse bodies and multiple paddle-like fins.
During mating, the female lays dozens of eggs and then transfers them to the male’s tail.
In the wild, the survival rate for sea dragon babies is low, but in captivity it’s about 60 percent, Gladish said. The fish is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of threatened species, mostly because of pollution and population growth in its native Australia.
Only about 50 aquariums worldwide have sea dragons.
(AP)
喬治亞水族館有件值得慶祝的稀罕事：館內的一隻草海龍懷孕了！
館方表示，這是美國水族館史上第三隻在水族館內懷孕的草海龍。
館內生物學家柯里．葛來迪西說，草海龍是極少數由雄性孵卵的物種之一，而海馬和海龍也是由雄性孵卵。
館內這隻草海龍的尾部附著了約七十個受精卵，這些受精卵看起來就像紅色小葡萄一樣；葛來迪西說，牠的預產期在七月初至七月中旬間。
水族館內的海龍很少懷孕，因為研究學者並不了解什麼樣的條件會刺激牠們交配。
葛來迪西說：「我們知道某種生理或環境的因素會刺激牠們繁殖，但我們不太清楚水族館內具備了哪種條件。」
這家水族館最近更換了燈光照明，並減少海龍水缸中的植物數量，以便讓牠們有足夠的空間彼此求愛。
這家水族館內有七隻十八英吋長的海龍，牠們的樣子很像蘇斯博士筆下有著土豚般的長鼻子、海馬般的彩色身體，和多個船槳似的鰭的角色。
在交配期間，雌海龍會在雄海龍的尾部產下?Z。
葛來迪西說，海龍寶寶在野生環境中的存活率很低，但在人工養殖的情況下，存活率可達六成左右。這種魚類名列國際自然保育聯盟的瀕危物種清單，主要是因為原生的澳洲海域受到污染及人口成長所致。
全世界只有約五十家水族館內有展示海龍。
（美聯社�翻譯：袁星塵）
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