jtotheizzoe:

Watch helplessly as this mussel is slowly & inexorably consumed by a sea star. Oh yeah, you’re watching from inside the shell.

This is so cool! You might not know this about sea stars, but certain species have the ability to invert a portion of their stomach and digest their prey from outside their body. If you’re an invertebrate, you can’t exactly crack open a shell the way a bird can.

This sea star pulls open the mussel shell slightly, inserts its stomach and releases a flood of digestive enzymes that dissolve its prey from the inside. You can watch that happen, sped up in the video above.

Sluuuuuuurp.

No word on whether the sea star also releases a white wine/butter sauce.

(via Deep Sea News)

I can watch pretty much anything the internet throws at me without batting an eye, but I didn’t make it past 1:16 on this one. Fuck suction cups, fuck sea stars, fuck the ocean. Nope nope nope.