海马 is not a single postcard animal. It is a set of populations, subspecies and human rules inside the fish family of this atlas.
Diversity inside the type
Field guides collapse many lineages into the English word 海马. Subspecies, flyways and captive lines do not share one fate -- bald eagles and Philippine eagles, or western and mountain gorillas, are the caution.
This atlas picks a Wikipedia title as the hero image and then keeps the rest of the grade in view so a recovered stock cannot launder a CR cousin.
Life in the landscape
Bony rings, a tubular snout and a prehensile tail. There is no caudal fin to flee with -- the dorsal fin is a hover engine.
Ambush of tiny crustaceans sucked through the snout. Male pregnancy is an energy and osmoregulatory job, not a metaphor.
Culture and meaning
English-language culture met the 海马 through film, law, heraldry and zoos. Those portrayals move money and sometimes take; they are not a field census.
The culture chapter dates posters and statutes so a 1975 film or a 1961 logo cannot pretend to be a 2020s Red List.
Conservation and money
Many Hippocampus species are Vulnerable; dried traditional-medicine and curio trades are the documented offtake.
Tourism, conflict payments, quotas and captive loans are dated economic bands in the market chapter -- not live prices and not a best-species prize.