Oh, it's true. See, it's even printed on my driver's license and my birth certificate. Huh.

Guess they really do call you that well This is perfect because I thought we could play a game of 20 questions I'll think of an animal and you get to ask me 20 questions to figure out which animal it is. Let's

do it Okay, does the animal you're thinking of

have a tail? Yes, it has a long curly tail for grabbing onto stuff. Oh, okay. I know this. It's a

monkey. Good guess. But no. Oh, okay. Uh, does it have a pouch? It does have a pouch. Okay, it has a long tail and a pouch. Oh, it's gotta be a kangaroo, right? It's a monkey. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, not a kangaroo. Jeez, a tail? A pouch? My next question was going to be if it lives in the ocean, but that seems unlikely. Uh, yes, it does live in the ocean in shallow habitats along the coast like coral reefs. Wait, for real? Is it some kind of fish? Yes, it is a fish. Hold up. Molly, are you pulling my leg? What kind of fish has a pouch and a curly tail?

I'll give you a hint.

Rrrrrr! Oh, okay, a sea cowboy? Oh, a sea pony. No. Sea monkey. No. Naaaa! Horses. Horses? Horses? Horses in the ocean? No! I got it! It's a seahorse! you got it a seahorse Wait a seahorse has a tail that can grab onto stuff and a pouch. Yes, and that's not all they also have Spoiler alert Molly. Don't tell me I'm just about to listen to this episode of brains on about seahorses right now

You're listening to Brain Zone from APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom, and my co-host today is Noemi from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hi, Noemi. Hey, Molly. Today we're talking about one of the most incredible creatures in the ocean, seahorses. We've gotten a lot of questions about seahorses over the years, like this one. Hello,

my name is Justin. Hi, my name is Sawyer. We're from Salt Lake City, Utah, and we wanna know how to seahorses swim. We're

going to answer that question and more today, but first, no, Emmy, you've been interested in seahorses for a while, right?

Yes.

Well, we have video proof of that because your mom shared a video of you talking about seahorses when you were three years old and you already knew a lot about them. Emmy. What?

Can you tell me some

stuff about seahorses?

They and they don't use a dorsal fin. They don't use a dorsal fin? What

kind of tails do they have?

Prehensile tails. That

is so stinking cute. Oh my gosh. I don't think there's a lot of three-year who know the word prehensile.

Yeah. I was definitely so into seahorses and animals when I was younger.

So do you remember how you found out all those facts about seahorses?

No idea. And

so back then do you remember like being really into other animals too? Like what were some of your other faves? I

remember that I really liked jaguars and I really liked ring-tailed lemurs.

So are you still interested in animals today?

I mean I definitely don't research them as much as I did when I was younger, but yeah I still love animals. How old are you now? Now I'm 11.

11? Okay so that was eight long years ago.

What's your favorite animal these days? Uh, I can't choose a favorite. Too

many wonderful animals. Yes. So, okay, let's have a top three. Could you do that?

Okay. I guess I like hawks. Mm. And cats. And I guess like any species of bird. So

cool. Have you ever seen a seahorse in real life?

No, I don't think so. At least not that I can remember.

So back then you were into the prehensile tails, the dorsal fins, the having babies. Do you have any other things about seahorses that you love?

I love their camouflage. Like I love that there's sort of like octopuses in that way, you know, or like they can blend in with their surroundings.

So do you feel like you remember everything you knew about sea back then or have you forgotten some of it?

I've definitely forgotten most of it.

Excellent. So we're gonna learn a lot today together. Seahorses are strange and wonderful animals. Technically, they're a type of fish, but they look really different from most other fishes. Instead of scales, seahorse bodies are covered in hard bony plates like armor.

They have long snouts and eyes that move independently in all directions, like a chameleon. Since

their eyes can move in different directions, that means one eye can be looking forward,

while the other is looking behind them at the same time. Seahorses also have a special curly tail that they use to hold on to kelp, seagrass, and coral, like how a monkey or possum's tail holds onto a branch.

Like Noemi said earlier, those are called prehensile tails, and seahorses are some of the only animals in the ocean that have them. There

are all different kinds of seahorses that live in oceans across the world. You

can find them along the rocky shores of Ireland, in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, or even in kelp forests on the California coast.

Some are as small as a grain of rice, while others are more than a foot long.

Seahorses come in all different colors too, from fiery red to bright yellow.

Some have long, spiky spines or bony knobs sticking off their bodies.

Others are covered in beautiful patterns like black and white stripes and tiny dots.

So cool. And get this, they can even change colors. Their skin can switch colors to help them blend in with their surroundings. That's called camouflage.

Sometimes they're so good at hiding that it's really hard to find them in the wild. We talked with Heather Coldaway about that. She's a marine biologist who co-founded a group called Project Seahorse, which works to protect seahorses in the wild.

Heather still remembers the first time she saw a wild seahorse. She was snorkeling at night in the Philippines. That

first moment of seeing one in the wild was quite extraordinary, just because I appreciated how very, very difficult it was. You paddle out over the reef, you drop into the water, which is of a mix of magical and spooky because it's all very sort of dark and mysterious but you get these flashes of plankton sort of glowing like sparkles and it's like being surrounded by tinsel as you swim and then going through the water you just have a flashlight under the water and

what you actually first see is their eyes moving. Seahorses have to be really good at hiding because lots of other creatures want to eat them,

and they're not great at

swimming away. A

seahorse holds its body straight up, with its head pointing toward the surface of the water and its tail facing toward the sea floor. When

they swim in this upright position, it's pretty awkward. It would be like if you tried to swim while standing upright.

Much slower than when you lay on your stomach and swim, with your hands in front of you and your feet behind you.

Seahorses have one fin on their back that moves them forward, like a propeller, and smaller fins on their head that help them steer. The

fins beat up to 70 times per second, about as fast as a hummingbird's wings. But even so, their awkward swimming style makes them

pretty slow. So if a predator comes along, seahorses probably won't be able to out-swim it. Instead, they hide or blend in with their surroundings. And

being camouflaged has another big advantage. It helps seahorses catch their food. You might

not think of seahorses as expert hunters, but picture this. A seahorse is hiding in a patch of seaweed, holding onto the plant with its grippy little tail. And it's waiting.

All different kinds of creatures pass by. Fish, sea turtles, sharks, the seahorse waits and watches.

Suddenly a tiny shrimp floats by in the water right next to the seahorse and it just sucks it in.

Heather says a seahorse's mouth has a special design to help it gob food down really fast.

Basically, the mouth has become fused into a straw with a flap on the end. So as the little shrimp swims by, the flap opens and the seahorse sucks really hard. Now, if you think of drinking a bubble tea or something like that where it's got a lump in it and you want to suck it really hard, then basically that's what that straw's doing. It's sucking in that shrimp as it swims by. So

seahorses are basically sucking up tiny sea creatures, just like they're sipping shrimp bubble tea. Another

cool thing about seahorses is that they can make sounds.

There's some

really curious things, like make noises, they click and they grunt and we don't really understand much about how seahorses

and why seahorses make noises. With their color changing camouflage, fluttering fin propellers, and super fast sucking straw mouth, seahorses are some of the coolest animals in the ocean. Most of the time, things are pretty chill for our horsey pals.

Yeah, they just drop onto some seaweed and slurp up tiny shrimp.

But lately, seahorses have been under threat, in part because people like to catch them and collect them. They sometimes get stuck in fishing nets meant for other animals and their habitats are being destroyed like coral reefs and kelp forests.

That's why Heather and her group, Project Seahorse, are trying to protect these little fishy friends.

You know, Noemi, there's one more amazing thing about seahorses we haven't mentioned yet. How

they have their babies! Exactly,

and I know just the seahorse to talk about that. How about we head over to the beach and see if we can find him? I'm always up for a beach trip. Before we go searching for seahorses, let's take a little break because it's time for the... Are you ready Noemi? Yes. Wonderful. Here it is. What do you think?

I think it could be like someone typing or like fluttering pages of a book or something.

Mmm. Typing or fluttering pages. You want to hear it again? Yeah. Okay, let's hear it. Okay, what do you think now?

Okay, I still think it might be those two, but it could also be like someone rattling something, something like bumping around inside maybe.

Okay, what do you think the thing rattling could possibly be? I don't know. That's why it's a mystery sound, because it's a mystery. Well, we'll hear it again, get another chance to guess, and hear the answer at the end of the show. We're working with our friends at Radiolab on an episode about naming objects in space, and it got us wondering about Earth's moon. Other planets in our solar system have moons with awesome names like Ganymede and Narvi. Why is Earth's moon just called moon? So we want to know if you had to give our moon a new name, what would it be? No, I mean, what would you name our moon? I know you read a lot and a lot of times names come from like, you know mythology or literature. So is there like a favorite character from a book you'd want to name the moon after or like a land from a book or something?