Big-belly seahorse
Amazing fact
The pot-bellied seahorse makes a click by rubbing bones in its head together.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The pot-bellied seahorse makes a click by rubbing bones in its head together.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Big-belly seahorse
- Scientific name
- Hippocampus abdominalis
- Japanese name
- ポットベリーシーホース
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Syngnathiformes
- Family
- Syngnathidae
- Genus
- Hippocampus
Where the name “Big-belly seahorse” comes from
The name “pot-bellied seahorse” refers to its large, bulging belly.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebHow the Big-belly seahorse lives
It is most active at dusk and at night. It spots prey with its eyes and sucks it up with its long snout as it passes. It has no teeth and swallows its prey whole. It anchors itself to seagrasses or seaweeds with its long, grasping tail.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- up to about 35 cm
- Range
- South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines
Where the Big-belly seahorse has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ポットベリーシーホース
- 简体中文
- 膨腹海马
- 繁體中文
- 膨腹海馬
- Deutsch
- Dickbauchseepferdchen
- Português (Brasil)
- Cavalo-marinho-barrigudo
- Italiano
- Cavalluccio panciuto
- العربية
- فرس البحر كبير البطن
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Kuda laut perut-besar
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — ポットベリーシーホースChecked: 2026-11-04
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Hippocampus abdominalisChecked: 2026-11-06
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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