Reproduction
Pipefishes, like their seahorse relatives, leave most of the parenting duties to the male. Courtship tends to be elaborately choreographed displays between the males and females. Pair bonding varies wildly between different species of pipefish. While some are monogamous or seasonally monogamous, others are not. Studies have shown that male pipefishes can take a rather sinister role. When their bodily resources are depleted instead of rearing the embryos they may digest them. Some pipefishes may also choose to digest the of embryos of a less-favorable mate.
Male pipefishes have a specially developed area to carry eggs, which are deposited by the female. In some species this is just a patch of spongy skin that the eggs adhere to until hatching. Other species have a partial or even fully developed pouch to carry the eggs. The location of the brood patch or pouch can be along the entire underside of the pipefish or just at the base of the tail, as with seahorses. Many species exhibit polyandry, a breeding system in which one female mates with two or more males. This tends to occur with greater frequency in internal brooding species of pipefishes than with external brooding species. Polyandrous species are also more likely to have females with complex sexual signals such as ornaments.
Young are born freeswimming with relatively little or no yolk sac, and begin feeding immediately. From the time they hatch they are independent of their parents, who at that time may choose to view them as food. Some fry have short larval stages and live as plankton for a short while. Others are fully developed but miniature versions of their parents, assuming the same behaviors as their parents immediately.
Read more about this topic: Pipefish
Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“An original is a creation
motivated by desire.
Any reproduction of an original
is motivated by necessity ...
It is marvelous that we are
the only species that creates
gratuitous forms.
To create is divine, to reproduce
is human.”
—Man Ray (1890–1976)
“The atmosphere parents wish to create when talking with children about birth and reproduction is warm, honest, and reassuring, one that tells children they are free to ask questions as often as they need to, and you will answer them as lovingly as you know how.”
—Joanna Cole (20th century)
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)