Gut Contents of Two European Seahorses Hippocampus hippocampus and Hippocampus guttulatus in the Aegean Sea, Coasts of Turkey
Articles > Article · 2011
Authors: Şule GÜRKAN, Ertan TAŞKAVAK, Tuncay Murat SEVER, Sencer AKALIN
PAKISTAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY, Journal Indexed in SCI Expanded, International, WoS, 2011, vol 43, pp 1197-1201
Summary
This study investigates the diet of adult wild seahorses, Hippocampus hippocampus and Hippocampus guttulatus from the Aegean Sea, along the coasts of Turkey. A total of 47 fish stomachs (H. hippocampus = 25, H. guttulatus = 22) were analyzed to determine diet according to fish size and sex. Twenty one of specimens of H. hippocampus (84%) had prey in their stomachs. The remaining 4 fish (16%) had empty stomachs. Sixteen H. guttulatus (72.73%) had prey in their stomachs. The remaining 6 fish (27.27%) had empty stomachs. Whereas Mysidaceae (26.92%) and Amphipoda (23.08%) were the main prey groups in diet of H. hippocampus, Mysidaceae (42.59%) and Decapod crustacean larvae (22.22%) constituted the most important food source of II. guttulatus. Because H. guttulatus is a moderately generalized benthonic predator, the food diversity in its gut was greater than in H. hippocampus. There were no differences in diets between males and females of either seahorse species.