Male seahorses carry the eggs and give birth, an event that most of us don’t get to witness. Luckily there is a YouTube video that shows one seahorse giving birth to hundreds and hundreds of babies.
The video (above) features annotations by NatGeo that explain the unique position that male seahorses find themselves in. After internal fertilization and a few weeks of pregnancy, male seahorses give birth to live offspring in the ocean. There is no real way to count how many of the tiny yet fully-formed seahorses (known as fry) leave the father’s pouch in bursts. But, according to NatGeo, the animals can have as many as 2000 babies at a time. Unfortunately, only around five in every 1000 seahorses will survive into adulthood.
Watch the video above to see the miracle of childbirth happen before your eyes, but be warned that it may not be an easy watch for some.