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These dads do more than their share

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 20, 2009 11:48 PM

(K. Clineff Photo)

By John S. Forrester, Globe Correspondent

This Father's Day many a modern dad will be honored who has gotten more involved in raising the children. But these guys take it to the extreme.

Twenty-three adult seahorses in a tank at the New England Aquarium are mating and giving birth. The odd thing is that, counter to the human experience, those expecting are the males. Seahorse males carry the eggs in a pouch on their chests until the babies hatch and emerge.

"I like that," Kathy Seefried, 50, of Bristol, R.I., said Saturday at the exhibit after learning about the seahorses' mating habits.

Quickly firing back, her son Adam, 25, of Fall River, jested, "I don't."

"I've had five pregnancies. Trust me, it would be a good idea," the elder Seefried said.

The male lined seahorses at the aquarium – a particular species that lives in the northwest Atlantic -- puff out their distinctive pouches to attract females – the fish equivalent of a peacock’s strut, said aquarium biologist Dave Wedge, 36, who cares for the seahorses located in the Edge of the Sea exhibit. (Some other species of seahorses carry the eggs in membranes on their tails, Wedge noted.)

Once a male lined seahorse finds a partner, the female usually waits three days before allowing him to intertwine with her in a spinning "dance" towards the surface in which eggs are transferred to the male, said Wedge.

Wedge pointed to one of the five-inch-long animals spinning in a tank and said, “That male’s really trying to impress that female” by showing its potential mate “how big his belly can be."

The animals reproduce rapidly, a necessity for an endangered species whose offspring have a less than 20 percent chance of survival, said Wedge. After the offspring are released from the pouch, the seahorses immediately begin mating again.

The male's hosting of the eggs "allows the female to start producing the next batch of eggs while he’s carrying the pregnancy," explained Wedge. "Fish don't have a history of a great success rate for their young surviving in the world."

The seahorse experience might hold a lesson for human fathers, Wedge suggested, on the value of "putting that extra effort into caring for your young…you know, giving the females a break."

“The males put so much more effort than any other species into the mating process,” said Wedge, who is the father of a three-year-old girl.

The dance of the lined seahorses isn't just a fleeting flirtation. Lined seahorses are monogamous for the mating season, Wedge said.

Looking at the seahorse tank with her 11-year-old son, Garrett, Deb Kennedy, 50, of Bennington, Vt. mused about the possibility of changing the roles.

“I think there would be would be a lot less children if the roles were reversed," she said.