Potential Techniques for Tagging and Marking Seahorses

1. Introduction
Marking seahorses for research and husbandry was first undertaken in the early 1990’s. In the last fifteen years there has been notable progress adapting marking and tagging methods for perciform fish to the dissimilar morphology of seahorses, but published data remain scarce. Techniques developed for other taxa such as invertebrates may also be feasible and deserve greater attention (Levin 1990). At present, only one study in the
primary literature specifically examines marking and tagging methods for seahorses (Woods & Martin-Smith 2004); other papers mention tagging and marking methods incidentally (Vincent & Sadler 1995, Bell et al. 2003, Moreau & Vincent 2004, Curtis & Vincent in press). Two projects have explicitly and incidentally examined the suitability of tagging systems: Le Cheminant (2000) investigated the relative efficacy of three marking systems in the Knysna seahorse, Hippocampus capensis, while van Dijken
(2001) monitored 43 tagged big-bellied seahorses (H. abdominalis) in the wild in New Zealand to understand their general ecology. However, many more techniques have been tried than presently appear in the literature.

Morgan, S. & C. Bull (2005). Potential techniques for marking and tagging seahorses (No. 7). Project Seahorse Technical Report. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Colin-Bull/publication/265574800_POTENTIAL_TECHNIQUES_FOR_MARKING_AND_TAGGING_SEAHORSES/links/54db7b690cf261ce15d02fd7/POTENTIAL-TECHNIQUES-FOR-MARKING-AND-TAGGING-SEAHORSES.pdf