From the growling, clicking and purring sounds they often make when greeting their mate to their highly monogamous nature, there's much more to the seahorse than its trademark horse-like head, elongated mouth and curly tail.
Seahorses Are a Type of Fish
At first glance, seahorses don't look like a fish, due to their unusual anatomical shape and lack of scales. But they actually belong to the class Actinopterygii ( bony fish ), which includes salmon and swordfish, and the family Syngnathidae (fused-jawed fish), which includes pipefish and seadragons.
All seahorses are part of the genus Hippocampus , a combination of the Greek words for "horse" and "sea monster."
That said, seahorses do have many physical traits in common with fish, including swim bladders that keep them buoyan