Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Marthasterias vs. food! Scallops and Clams on the RUN!

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

Yes, its that time of the year..and I hope everyone has made their way to wherever they were going for the holidays! I'm still taking a little time off, but here's a bunch of neat videos of the Atlantic sea star Marthasterias glacialis attacking various clams and scallops!

Most mollusks can detect the "odor" or presence of predatory starfish immediately and many species can implement an extreme or emergency type behavior (i.e. an escape response) in order to escape being eaten. This can be quite different from the regularly encountered behavior associated with these species.

This one has the ol' "I am a clam with a big FOOT that I use to push myself away" response!


M. glacialis Vs. Scallop! (aka Coquille Saint Jacques)


"Un amor gourmand" aka "Greedy Love" (I think?). TWO starfish species for the price of one! Marthasterias pursuing a scallop (with a dramatic soundtrack) followed by some cool Astropecten burrowing video! Some interesting French narration follows...


Happy New Year (Bonne annee!) to Everyone from the Echinoblog!

3 comments:

Drhoz said...

Any idea what the tiny starfish sitting just in front of the first scallop is?

ChrisM said...

You're talking about the 2nd video? I think you 're talking about that tiny little brittle star? looks too hard to tell from this distance..

Drhoz said...

yes, that's the one. arms seem a bit short and stiff for a brittlestar though