In a rare case in the animal world where the male gives birth to the baby’s, surgeons have carried out a complicated operations on a male seahorse that suffered a pouch prolapse after delivering thousands of babies.
The operation took place at the L’Oceanografic aquarium in the city of Valencia in the eastern Spanish region of the same name.
According to an aquarium press statement, a male seahorse has a pouch on its stomach in which to carry babies, as many as 2,000 at a time.
The reproductive process begins when a male and female seahorse do daily dances together and intertwine their tails. Eventually they take part in a true courtship dance which ends with the female depositing her eggs in the male’s pouch.
After giving birth, the male pouch can suffer a prolapse, usually due to the large number of offspring contained inside.
The seahorse in the video suffered such a prolapse and dedicated vets performed microsurgery to rectify the problem, according to the Spanish aquarium. A prolapse is where organs fall down or slip out of place and is used to refer to organs protruding and out of place.
They said that surgeons needed to use a special magnifying glass to treat the affected area of the pouch.
The L’Oceanografic aquarium said that the male seahorse has fully recovered from the procedure and is now whizzing around its tank again.
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Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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