Living Puppets hand puppet Törtchen the seahorse

With her purple body, salmon-coloured ringed belly and bright mane, the Törtchen the Seahorse hand puppet by Living Puppets catches the eye straight away. In the reading corner or on the puppet stage Törtchen speaks up herself, nodding, marvelling or objecting as the story goes. In nurseries and primary schools she suits project weeks about the sea and the coast, and when the first swimming badge comes up she makes a fitting mascot for the group. In language work and therapeutic settings, a hand puppet often takes on the role of a listener that children confide in more readily than in an adult.

The mouth works on the fold-open principle Living Puppets uses throughout its animal range, and the head moves along as you play. The hand opening sits at the back of the head and is cut so that children and adults can both guide Törtchen securely, even through longer scenes.

Seahorses of the genus Hippocampus belong to the pipefish family and are therefore bony fish. They live in tropical and temperate seas, usually in sheltered shallow water down to around six metres, holding on to seagrass and corals with their four-sided prehensile tail. Depending on the species they measure from little more than a centimetre to about 35 centimetres. As ambush hunters they suck in small crustaceans through their tube-shaped snout. Because they have no stomach, food passes through the digestive tract very quickly, which is why they need to feed almost constantly.

Did you know that male seahorses carry the young? The female deposits her eggs in a brood pouch on the male's belly, where they are fertilised and develop. A few weeks later the father releases the fully formed offspring into open water. A genuine pregnancy in the male is known from no other group of animals.