Survival tactics of a Seahorse

The skeletal system of the seahorse consists of stacked rings of bony plates that enclose the spine and serve as protective armor. These plates can compress vertically and slide laterally, providing an effective defense mechanism.

It’s hip to be square if you’re a seahorse—or rather, it has certain adaptive advantages. Cylindrical tails may be much more popular in the animal kingdom, but the seahorse’s bizarre square-prism tail has far better mechanical properties.

“Almost all animal tails have circular or oval cross-sections—but not the seahorse’s. We wondered why,” said Clemson University mechanical engineer Michael Porter. “We found that the squared-shaped tails are better when both grasping and armor are needed.”
Porter’s insights on the virtues of a square tail, published tomorrow in Science, could help engineers design robots that can grip, grab, twist and endure mechanical stress much better than their modern counterparts.

Sources:

https://gizmodo.com/seahorses-square-tails-may-be-the-key-to-building-bette-1715034155

https://wenxinyang.com/seahorse-biomimicry/