Pygmy Seahorses Lost Their Long Snout, And It’s Kept Them Alive For 18 Million Years

The most identifiable part of a hippocampus is the long muzzle that gives them their name. But did you know that there is a kind of hippocampus that has evolved their muzzle?

The pygmy hippocampus, one of the smallest vertebrates measuring around the size of your sticker, does not have the emblematic huseau in the shape of a horse of other Ahières. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences I examined why this kind of Hise de Seahorse lost their long muzzle and proposed the answer by sequencing the genome of the pygmy sea for the first time.

The reason for the truncated nose of the pygmy hise? To help them blend into the coral, they call for them.

“Hippocaliers generally have an elongated muzzle that looks like a horse[…]. However, this would distinguish the pygmy bridge from the shape of the coral, “said Axel Meyer, a professor at the University of Konstanz, in a press release.” We were very interested in discovering at what stage of development this deviant appearance of the Pygmy Sehdrors is formulated to provide good camouflage and which genes are responsible. »»

What does the pygmy sea horse look like?

Pygmy hippocamples are known as disguise masters, mixing perfectly in the specific type of coral to which they cling. Over time, they have evolved to adapt the shape and color of their body so that they remain not detected when they hung on the coral, patiently waiting for food to pass. Their camouflage skills are so effective that they were only discovered by scientists 45 years ago and remain a very elusive species of underwater creature.

At a young age, pygmy hippocamples resemble other hippocampic species. In the early stages of development, hippocamples all have short and squatting muzzle which give them a cute appearance and similar to a baby. However, while other hippocamples species come out from this childish look, pygmied hippocampes remain stuck there forever.

“Normally, a combination of different genetic components means that the muzzle of a hippocampus develops proportionally more quickly than the other parts of the body of a certain age and thus becomes elongated. In the pygmy sea horse, however, we have now discovered that these different growth rates are deleted because the Hoxab2b gene was lost,” said Meyer in the press release.

Learn more: The right pygmy whale was the bizarre family, and it never died out

Sequencing of the pygmy genome of the hippocampus

To find out more about these genetic losses, scientists have analyzed the genetic expression of pygmy sea hise during different stages of development. Thanks to this analysis, some surprising differences appeared between pygmied hippocamples and other hippocampic species.

In addition to discovering that the small muzzle of the Pygmy Seahorse is due to a genetic loss, the research team noted that pygmy hippocaliers have also lost an unexpected number of immune genes. In addition, they discovered that pygmied hippocamples have the smallest known set of immune genes not only of all hippocamples species, but of all vertebrates.

“This is probably due to the fact that coral toxins can be tolerated by pygmied hippocamples and even offer them protection against microbes. Consequently, their immune system no longer needs corresponding genes,” Meyer said in the press release.

Overall, these discoveries on the unique genetics of the Pygmy Seahorse make the perfect example of evolution at work. They took what was advantageous for them and, over millions of years and many generations, left everything else.

Learn more: Fish teeth show that ease of evolution is its own evolutionary advantage

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