Pregnant male sea dragon at UC San Francisco’s Birch Aquarium may give birth to many babies

The UC San Diego Birch Aquarium first persuaded a female kelp sea dragon to give large numbers of eggs to a male sea dragon that can give birth to many babies.

Aquarium staff discovered on Monday that one of his males was carrying about 100 bright pink eggs in a “brood pouch”. Many will become fully formed and be born in four to six weeks.

It’s a natural oddity and a scientific leap for Birch, which is part of the Scripps Oceanographic Institution.

Scientists say that sea dragons, seahorses and sea pipers are the only animals on Earth in which males become pregnant and give birth.

Birch has made little progress in growing them in 2020. The female sea dragon gave the male five eggs, resulting in two cubs. But it’s only now that La Jolla has done it broadly with female sea dragons that are capable of producing 200 to 300 eggs.

“I was shocked and began to applaud,” said Leslie Matsushige, assistant curator at Birch. “We’ve been working on this for so long.

The Birch first imported sea dragons from the Dallas Aquarium in 1996 as part of its educational and conservation efforts. Getting them to breed was no easy task, largely because it is difficult to replicate the habitat of the sea dragons, which are known for fluttering silently through the kelp beds and rocky reefs of southern Australia.

“We went through a lot of trial and error learning how to keep them healthy,” Matsushige said on Tuesday. “Most fish will try to breed if they are happy.”

The aquarium has done things like fine-tuning the creatures’ diet, adding vitamins and probiotics, and controlling their calories.

The Birch also worked on the lighting and stonework to make it work.

The goal is to prepare the sea dragons for breeding, which begins with courtship, in which the flexible fish imitate each other’s movements in a “mirror dance”.

The female then produces eggs that are released and captured by the male’s tale, where they remain until they hatch.

Matsushige said that Birch would be ready if the pregnant male gave birth to many babies.

“We would have to give a lot of food, but we would have done it,” she said. “We would make room for them. It’s a good problem.”

The pregnant male is currently visible in the aquarium where the sea dragon lives.

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