Lessons Learned From a Baby Seahorse

Last December, I acquired some new baby seahorses for my aquarium. I quickly realized that one of the four was born without a “snick” – the snapping suction action that seahorses use to capture and eat their prey. Where seahorses normally snick up food, this little fellow could only inhale weakly and hope something made it far enough up his snout to reach his belly. Writing isn’t an easy life. The odds are against a writer from the start. In addition to learning how to write–a difficult task in itself–the writer must finish a novel, edit the novel, choose and pursue a

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The Most Patient Shrimp in the World

Most of the time, my seahorses eat at regular places in the tank. The large male (Cygnus) and the female (Ceti) eat near the top of the tank, while the little male (Ghillie) eats alone near his favorite hitch at the bottom of the reef. Last night, however, Ceti noticed me feeding Ghillie and decided to share his dinner instead of swimming up for her own. She quickly discovered there wasn’t enough room for two on Ghillie’s coral hitch, so she snaked her tail around the closest object – in this case, a cleaner shrimp. I ran for my camera,

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