A weedy sea dragon expecting its offspring by Lenka Filipova

The Georgia Aquarium is going to have new “citizens” in its waters in 4 or 6 weeks. Actually, it is the weedy sea dragon which is pregnant and for the officials working in the aquarium it is a quite rare and extraordinary event. The sea dragon belongs to those species where male is responsible for carrying the eggs, not female. It is a little bit of anomaly, but there are really some of these species which do bring their offspring by the means of their fathers. However, the role of female is furthermore important as she lays a couple of eggs and provides transferring them to male's tail. For instance, sea horses and pipe fish are such an unusual species.Well, for the Georgia Aquarium it has been only the third time the sea dragon is carrying the eggs. Kerry Gladish, a biologist working at the aquarium, really appreciates this occasion as he told that this was rare because scientists still do not know exactly what causes the sea dragons to feel like mating. He reckons that it must be something biological or environmental what brings them to reproduce. However, he could not find the clue, what was the reason in that aquarium environment. Well, probably it may have been the result of recent changes that were made in the aquarium. Precisely, they changed the lightening and weeded out some plants in order to make more room for sea creatures to reproduce.There is only a low probability to save the sea dragon's babies in the the wild. Fortunately, in captivity, the caretakers are able to keep them in safety in more than in 60 per cent.

by Lenka Filipova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Katarina Gaskova