Flat-faced seahorse
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
In flat-faced seahorses, young emerge from a pouch on the male’s belly.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Flat-faced seahorse
- Scientific name
- Hippocampus trimaculatus
- Japanese name
- タカクラタツ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Syngnathiformes
- Family
- Syngnathidae
- Genus
- Hippocampus
It lives along the coasts of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu and Okinawa, and from Korea, Taiwan and China to the tropical eastern Indian Ocean and western Pacific.
How the Flat-faced seahorse lives
It rapidly sucks in small fish, shrimp and zooplankton to eat. It lives upright, wrapping its finless tail around seaweed and other supports. It can be hard to spot because it resembles seagrass and similar plants.
天城町Basic data
- Range
- Pacific coast of Hokkaido, Okinawa Islands, southern Korea, Taiwan, tropical eastern Indian Ocean to western Pacific, and elsewhere
Where the Flat-faced 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
- タカクラタツ
- 简体中文
- 斑海马
- 繁體中文
- 三斑海馬
- 한국어
- 점해마
- Português (Brasil)
- Cavalo-marinho-indiano
- Italiano
- Cavalluccio trimaculato
- العربية
- فرس البحر ثلاثي البقع
- Tiếng Việt
- Cá ngựa chấm
- Türkçe
- Üçbenekli Denizatı
- ไทย
- ม้าน้ำสามจุด
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 — タカクラタツChecked: 2026-11-04
- 天城町 — タカクラタツ ( Flat-faced seahorse, Longnose seahorse,three-spot seahorse, etc. )Checked: 2026-11-07
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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