Gut contents of two European seahorses hippocampus hippocampus and hippocampus guttulatus in the Aegean Sea,Coasts of Turkey

This study investigates the diet of adult wild seahorses,hippocampus hippocampus and hippocampus guttulatus from the aegean sea,along the coasts of turkey. a total of 47 fish stomachs (h. hippocampus = 25,h. guttulatus = 22) were analyzed to determine diet according to fish size and sex. twenty one of specimens of h. hippocampus (84%) had prey in their stomachs. the remaining 4 fish (16%) had empty stomachs. sixteen h. guttulatus (72.73%) had prey in their stomachs. the remaining 6 fish (27.27%) had empty stomachs. whereas mysidaceae (26.92%) and amphipoda (23.08%) were the main prey groups in diet of h. hippocampus,mysidaceae (42.59%) and decapod crustacean larvae (22.22%) constituted the most important food source of h. guttulatus. because h. guttulatus is a moderately generalized benthonic predator,the food diversity in its gut was greater than in h. hippocampus. there were no differences in diets between males and females of either seahorse species. © 2011 zoological society of pakistan.