Mark Flessner, age 7, of Peoriaa, Ill., for his question:

Is it true that the male sea horse gives birth?

The top half of a sea horse looks like a miniature pony, and his other half tapers to a monkey type tail. He is not related to the horse, but he does live in the sea. Actually he is a most unusual fish  and baby sea horse are born in a most unusual way.

There are about 50 different seahorses, and the giant of the family is l2_inches tall and lives in the Pacific Ocean. The dwarf sea horse lives in the warm waters of Florida and measures only an inch and a half. In the blue green water there are tangles of brownish green seaweed and patches of gold sand. There may be glossy pebbles and rainbow colored clumps of coral. And a sea horse tends to match these colors. He may be black or greenish brown, milky white or brilliant red.

The mamma and the papa look alike, but the papa has a pocket on his tummy and the mamma does not. This pocket is the brood pouch and the male sea horsy Uses it to brood or incubate the eggs. Of course, two eggs are needed to start a baby, one from the mother and one from the father. They join to make a fertflized egg.

Family life begins when the female is ready to lay her eggs. She goes courting to find a father for her young. she coaxes him to let her put her eggs into his pouch. This pocket in pappas' tummy has a tiny hole and the mamma pokes into it a few eggs at a time. The dwarf sea horse lays maybe l0 eggs, and larger sea horse lay l50 or 200 eggs.

The little hole in the brood pouch then seals itself shut. The eggs inside become fertilized and begin to develop. This may take from a week to three weeks. The youngsters hatch from their eggs still sealed in papa's pouch. Perhaps they wriggle and squirm because the father sea horse seems to become very uncomfortable.

He bends and jerks and pushes his swollen tummy against a stone. somehow he seems to know that the time has come for his children to be born, for he finds shelter in a tangle of floating seaweed. The hole in the pocket comes unsealed and the little sea horses pop out like tiny bubbles. Papa jerks and twists his body to help them. The youngsters soon lose themselves in the ferny tangle and twine their tiny tails around scraps of seaweed.

The baby dwarf sea horses measure no more than a quarter of an inch. They are perfect copies of their parents and. all ready to take cars of themselves. The babies of the bigger sea horses may be a half inch long. some males give birth to one or two batches of babies during the summer. The tiny dwarf sea horse broods one batch of babies after another through most of the year. However, from November to February he rests from his family duties.