Horseplay down in the bay
Daphne is one of the seahorses that Rog Hanson is studying in Alamitos Bay.
Rog Hanson emerges from the coastal waters, pulls a diving regulator out of his mouth and pushes a scuba mask down around his neck. “Did you see her?” he says. “Did you see Bathsheba?” On this quiet Wednesday morning, a paddle boarder glides silently through the surf off Long Beach. Two stick-legged whimbrels plunge their long curved beaks into the sand, hunting for crabs.
But Hanson, 68, is enchanted by what lies hidden beneath the water. Today, he took a visitor on a tour of the secret world he built from palm fronds and pine branches at the bottom of the bay: his very own sea horse city.
The visitor confirms that she did see Bathsheba, an 11-inch-long orange Pacific sea horse, and a grin spreads across Hanson’s broad face.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” he says. “She’s our supermodel.”
If you get Hanson talking about his sea horses, he’ll tell you exactly how many times he’s seen them (997), who is dating whom, and describe their personalities with intimate familiarity. Bathsheba is stoic, Daphne a runner. Deep Blue is chill.
He will also tell you that getting to know these strange, almost mythical beings has profoundly affected his life. “I swear, it has made me a better human being. On land I’m very C-minus, but underwater, I’m Mensa.”
Hanson is a retired schoolteacher, not a scientist, but experts say he probably has spent more time with Pacific sea horses, also known as Hippocampus ingens, than anyone on Earth.
Pacific sea horses are among the largest members of the sea horse family. Males can grow up to 14 inches long, while females generally top out at about 11. They come in a variety of colours, including orange, maroon, brown and yellow. They are talented camouflagers that can alter the colour of their exoskeleton to blend into their environment.
But perhaps their most distinguishing characteristic is that they are the only known species in the animal kingdom to exhibit a true male pregnancy. Females deposit up to 1,500 eggs in the male’s pouch. The males incubate the eggs, providing nutrition and oxygen for the growing embryos. When the larval sea horses are ready to be released, he goes into labour —scientists call it “jackknifing” —pushing his trunk toward his tail.
If Hanson wants to show you his underwater world, nothing will stop him. He will hold you firmly by the hand and guide you down to the forest he built at the bottom of the bay.
And if you’ve never seen a sea horse in the wild before, you will feel honoured and awed, as if you’ve just seen a unicorn beneath the sea.