Seahorse
The circular mural of a seahorse was painted by me on the East Pier in 2018. It was inspired by Breffni Carrol's Book of Kells-like mural of 1980, with its distinctive circular shape, which I later restored in 2020, and is adjacent to my seahorse painting.
I first became fascinated by seahorses when I viewed one in the former Sea Life Centre in Bray. I was very taken by the elegant and delicate sea creature, and wanted to pay tribute to it with my mural.
Seahorses are tiny fish that are named for the shape of their head, which looks like a tiny horse. There are around 36 seahorse species, which are found in tropical and temperate coastal waters where they swim upright among seaweed and other plants.
Seahorses’ bodies are covered in tiny, spiny plates, all the way from their head down to their curled, flexible tail. As they are terrible swimmers, their tails can grasp objects, which comes in handy when they want to anchor themselves to vegetation.
Seahorses are monogamous and, remarkably, the male species carry babies during reproduction. The female seahorse lays dozens, sometimes hundreds, of eggs in a pouch on the male seahorse’s abdomen. Called a ‘brood pouch’, it’s a bit like the pouch of a kangaroo, used for carrying young. The young baby seahorse, about the size of an M&M, finds other baby seahorses and float together in small groups, clinging to each other using their tails.
A master of camouflage, the seahorse can be incredibly difficult to spot. Camouflage not only helps the seahorse avoid predators, such as crabs and other fish, it helps it to be a predator, too.
Feeding on small crustaceans, seahorses are super-skilled ambush predators. Rather than chasing their food, they wait, unnoticed, for prey to pass by. They then suck their unsuspecting victim through their tube-like mouth, before swallowing it whole!
Two species of seahorse can be found in coastal waters off Ireland and the UK – the Spiny Seahorse and the Short Snouted Seahorse.
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