Seahorses

London Zoo's latest exhibit focuses on those beautiful and bizarre creatures of the deep, seahorses. Home to 172 long- and short-snouted seahorses, the display comprises eight tanks that enable visitors to study the various stages of the seahorse lifecycle, with special curved tanks for the fry (seahorse babies), tanks for juveniles and separate tanks for each of the mating pairs, who like a bit of privacy. Famous for their strange mating habits (they are the only species in which males become pregnant and give birth) seahorses are a rapidly declining species in the wild and London Zoo leads the way with its breeding programme – hundreds of seahorses have been bred in the past four years, with more than 300 individuals moving on to join other breeding groups across Europe.