LPoD - brains and seahorses

When we visited Spain a couple of Easters back, we stayed in a hotel called Hippocampo. I was tickled at how similar that sounded to the part of the brain called 'hippocampus'. Since I spoke no Spanish and noticed several other hotels and apartment blocks with the same word in the name, I assumed it was the surname of the owner of the chain or the holding company or something along those lines.

It gradually dawned on me that the seahorses which appeared everywhere were no coincidence. I looked up the word seahorse in the phrase book and confirmed my suspicions. Hippocampo = seahorse.

Now that I knew this, I was tickled that an area of the brain should have a name that sounded like the Spanish for seahorse.

Today I discovered - well duh! - that the hippocampus is so called because of its resemblance to a seahorse.

Doh!