Seahorses don't exactly inspire images of proficient predators, but it turns out the tiny sea creature is an incredibly adept hunter thanks to its head. That's right, a seahorse's head, it turns out, is an amazing silent killer.

Seahorses primarily hunt copepods, small crustaceans that can burst away in speeds of more than 500 body lengths per second when they detect a predator. That's the equivalent of a human swimming at 2,000 miles per hour and yet seahorses have an incredible 90 percent success rate when hunting.

"A seahorse is one the slowest swimming fish that we know of, but it's able to capture prey that swim at incredible speeds for their size," said Brad Gemmell, research associate at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

"Seahorses have the capability to overcome the sensory abilities of one of the most talented escape artists in the aquatic world — copepods. People often don't think of seahorses as amazing predators, but they really are."

To catch these slippery creatures that can sense a predator based on waves present in the water, seahorses have to rely on the element of surprise. Marine scientists from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute found that a seahorse's head is designed so that it produces no wake when it strikes its prey. Just like an owl's feathers help conceal the predatory bird in silence until it strikes, a seahorse's face is designed to conceal its attack by emitting no waves in the water that the copepods can detect.

"It's like an arms race between predator and prey, and the seahorse has developed a good method for getting close enough so that their striking distance is very short," explains Gemmell.

You can read the full published study detailing the findings in journal Nature Communications.