Starfish Pokes its Stomach Inside Out

A starfish pokes its stomach inside out, sliding it through the narrow gap in the mussel shell in order to feed by dissolving the living flesh inside.

The set up for this video sequence, reveals what occurs in the wild, but is otherwise hidden and out of sight on the underside of the starfish.
One half of a mussel has been placed flat up against a glass panel. On the upper edge of the shell, a thin notch has been cut, creating a small gap.

In the wild, the mussel is protected when its two half shells are closed together. Some starfish can straddle a mussel, pull and force open, just slightly, enough to create a small gap, through which it pokes its stomach.
Rather than put food into a stomach, it sends its stomach out to the food source.

The seashore wildlife in the video are:
Cushion Star Starfish (Asterina gibbosa)
Common Mussel (Mytilus edulis)

Nudge Nudge Info:
The video is animated stills, native 640×480 resolution and has been re-edited for SeaShore Antics archives, set in an HD frame with a bit of surrounding gumf, as a stimulus for education or intrigue, to learn or start discussion about our seashore and it’s inhabitants. . . or science as a method of observing stuff.
It’s just a sample of this ‘other living being’, doing its ‘normal’ thing.

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