Seahorses are technically fish and are most notable for their uncanny appearance. They live in shallow seas in the tropical and temperate parts of the world. They are active swimmers but also spend a lot of their lives sleeping.
Sea horses do not like to float around when sleeping so seahorses will latch onto anything they can get a hold of to stay in place when at sleep. Being diurnal, they mostly sleep at night and with their eyes open to watch out for predators!
Seahorses are small crested and tailed fish. They eat plankton, shrimps, and other small aquatic animals.
Clearly, seahorses are built differently from other types of fish. In fact, seahorses are known as fairly bad swimmers compared to their streamlined fish cousins.
Their head resembled that of a horse, their tail is quite similar to a monkey, and male seahorses carried a pouch in their stomachs which is the same with kangaroos. Indeed, seahorses are strange sea creatures with their own beauty!
Do seahorses lie down when sleeping?
No, seahorses, like other fish, do not lie down when sleeping.
Instead, they mostly just float in different positions and try not to float too far away by grabbing objects perturbing from the sea bed. They may even grab onto each other!
For example, they will latch on to seaweed or corals so that they are not carried away with the current.
They may randomly lie down with their nose fist for some time, but their buoyancy profile favors a vertical position.
This is, however, only true for seahorses when their habitats have no objects for them to attach themselves to but most adult seahorses seek out places with seaweed and low current where they can sleep safely.
Do seahorses sleep upside down?
Yes, seahorses can indeed sleep upside down, but do not always do so. This sleeping position can be attributed to their buoyancy with the head being heavier than the tail.
Oftentimes, when sea horses are seen in an upside-down position, it is because of strong current conditions, where the seahorse uses its strongest dorsal fins to fight against the current. Ironically, this struggling also pushes the head of the seahorse downwards.
However, seahorses mostly sleep upright attached to branches or shells on the bottom of shallow seas. Some people think that seahorses sleep upside down with their eyes open in a completely inactive state to save energy but in fact, they may actually be actively fighting the current.
When sleeping, seahorses are not consciously moving but they may assume different positions to counteract the water current if not attached to a static object.
Therefore they are often seen with their head down and their tail sticking up towards the water surface, which may seem like a rather random thing to do.
However, studies have shown that seahorses sleep upside down more often than not, so it is not completely random after all! It seems to be some, for sea horses physically preferred way of stay afloat in water and perhaps unconsciously counteracting strong current even when asleep!
These sea creatures lack the tail fin of a typical fish. Instead, they use their dorsal fin to either move forward or around.
Do seahorses sleep with their eyes open?
Yes! They cannot close their eyes, so they are always open.
Biologically speaking, seahorses do not have eyelids. This means that when they are either sleeping or resting, their eyes remain open.
So technically, seahorses do not sleep with their eyes open as they cannot be closed (can there be an open without a closed state, 1 without 0?! Let’s not get too philosophical here…).
Well, you may ask, why is this so? Let us go back to how these sea creatures are built.
Seahorses do not need eyelids because they have a relatively thick membrane layer on their eyes to protect them, and they have evolved to always be aware of predators in their environment.
In fact, seahorses can move their eyes independently just like how a chameleon moves its eyes.
While they sleep with their eyes, open seahorses can always look out for possible threats from any prey lurking around.
Where do seahorses sleep?
As they are known for being bad and slow swimmers, seahorses often live in habitats in or near seagrass beds and coral reefs with many hiding places and attachment sides.
Also, these sea creatures are relatively immobile especially when the male ones are carrying the fertilized eggs on their pouch-like stomachs, so they stay away from open waters with strong currents.
One of the primary reasons why seahorses chose shallow water habitats is that they like to wrap their tails around this seaweed or other plants and they do not want these objects to be too far from the surface.
In this way, they can sleep peacefully and not be carried away by the water’s current in other dangerous places.
Many animals, like most sea birds, like to sleep in groups to better when each other aginst predators, but this does not seem to be the case for sea horses that mostly sleep alone or in pairs.
As such, this is also an instinctual survival skill these creatures have grown to develop as they also love to lurk in these habitats while waiting for their prey to come around. Essentially, they’ll strike once the prey has lost its way into their habitat.
When do seahorses sleep?
Sea horses are generally diurnal, so they sleep at night.
Although most sea horses sleep when it is dark, there is no strict definite sleeping pattern among seahorses and they often sleep in small bursts also during the day but mostly at night.
This means that they, like other sea creatures including crabs, do not follow a strict sleeping routine but prefer to sleep when it is dark.
As these sea animals have no choice but to stay close to their habitats and lurk for food and dangers in these areas, the times that they sleep are mostly constrained by that of their enemies and prey!
Do seahorses sleep at night or are they nocturnal?
Essentially, seahorses can either be diurnal or nocturnal creatures. Simply, some of these creatures can either be active during the day or at night.
As mentioned before, seahorses can either be classified as nocturnal or diurnal. Let us take for example the species of seahorses called the Satomi pygmy.
Aside from being considered as one of the smallest seahorses, the Satomi pygmy is also known to be the only nocturnal seahorse.
Essentially, this means that they are very active at night but they sleep or take a rest during the day. As such, seahorses do not have a specific sleeping pattern or schedule. If they need to take a rest or sleep, they do it either during the day or at night.
For how long do seahorses sleep?
Currently, there is no sufficient data to say precisely how much seahorses sleep, but it is estimated to be around 5-12 hours most of which is during the night.
However, one thing is sure: Seahorses rest a lot! An hour of seahorse life is like 3 hours of human life. Seahorses can semi-sleep underwater while being attentive because they have a transparent eyelid that protects them from dirt and debris. Seahorses sleep deeply for a maximum of 20 minutes at a time and are always aware of their surroundings.
However, their short bursts of sleep can take place either be during the day or at night, seahorses lurk, hold on to seagrass beds and any type of sea plants, and eventually take their rest or sleep for as long as they want.
