Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How can you record a seahorses respiration rate, pulse, and temperature? Is there a way to know record these systems?

Hi,

Sounds like a project on seahorses would be fascinating:

http://www.geocities.com/leojags/seahorse.html

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/fry.shtml

http://www.indyzoo.com/pdf/Seahorses.pdf

http://www.syngnathid.org/articles/seahorseAnatomy.html

http://aquarium.ucsd.edu/Education/Lear ... f/body.swf

I have looked for as long as I can afford to, but have not found a clear reference to anyone monitoring seahorse heartbeats - perhaps you could be the first? As to how to do it, I saw one reference to being able to see the heart visually in a very young seahorse embryo in one of the links above. That would be the easiest thing to try. Adult seahorses may be too heavily pigmented to be able to see through. It might be possible to find a hydrophone (a very sensitive underwater microphone) that maybe could hear the heartbeat. It also might be possible to pick up the electrical signal of the heart from electrodes positioned near the seahorse. The latter two ideas are not proven as far as I know, and would require undertaking some difficult original research to attempt.

If you cannot see the heartbeat in a seahorse, and you are seriously interested in this project, I would very seriously suggest trying to find a research biology professor who is interested in fish at a university near you and attempt to enlist his help. You will probably need rather expensive and sensitive equipment and access to a very good professional biology library to get much further on this idea.

Congratulations on asking a really good, original question. I wish you every success in pursuing this research idea.

Best regards,

Barrett Tomlinson

I agree with Barrett that heart rate may be problematic, but you should be able to obtain respiration rate easily enough by looking at gill movements (see here to find out where their gills are: http://www.aquarium.org/seahorses/faq_gills.htm). Since seahorses are ectothermic (they usually take on the temperature of their surroundings), you should be able to get their temperature by taking the water temperature.

Hope this helps!