Name of animal-plant: Pacific seahorse

Species name: Hippocampus ingens

The Pacific seahorse (Hippocampus ingens) is a species of fish in the Syngnathidae family. It is found in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and the United States. Its natural habitat is coral reefs. It is threatened by habitat loss. The genus name is derived from the Greek.

Animal type: FISH

A fish is any member of a group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a sister group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups. Tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods (i.e., the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals which all descended from within the same ancestry). Because in this manner the term “fish” is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces (also ichthyes) is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification.

Subcategory: m_benthic

 

Fact:

All animals and plants are given a species name based on a technical term in biological taxnomy. The species name consists of two words and is based on Latin.

The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs and  the second part identifies the species within the genus. In this animals case it is: Hippocampus ingens

Photos by f_iodinea, kentsmith9, stshank,