Does 'forever' exist for seahorses during mating season? Kuya Kim answers

Does "forever" exist for seahorses during mating season?

According to Kuya Kim on "24 Oras Weekend," Sunday, seahorses are loyal to their partner or mate.

Once seahorses mate, they stay together during the entire mating season.

Some species of seahorses also don't change mates. They pick the same mates for the next breeding season.

And that makes the recent news of the illegal seahorse trade that much sadder.

Local authorities confiscated three boxes of more than 46 kg of dried seahorses valued at P600,000 at Zamboanga International Airport.

According to Police Major Sharwin Concha, Head of PNP Aviation Security Unit 9, they discovered it when the boxes passed through the X-ray machine.

"Definitely lahat ng mga seahorses [trade] bawal na po 'yan, banned na po 'yan," said Al-Zath K. Kunting, RFP, BFAR IX Regional Director.

Investigation is ongoing.

According to Gregg Yan, Executive Director of the Best Alternatives Campaign, which works to promote sustainable seafood, all seahorse species are endangered and protected under CITES ot the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Seahorses may be used as medicine and an aphrodisiac.

In case you didn't know, Kuya Kim said that when seahorses mate, the female seahorse deposits the eggs in a pouch in the belly of the male seahorse. The male seahorse is the one that carries the eggs until they hatch.

And Kuya Kim added more trivia: The seahorse is a type of fish, and it gets its name because its head looks like the head of a horse.

—Kimberly Tsao/MGP, GMA Integrated News