Megan I. McCuller/Wikimedia Commons
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Close-up of baby starfish body parts.
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Nationalgeographic.co.id-A research latest find practice cannibalism underwater involving babies starfish. They turned out to be animals cannibal who like to eat each other when hungry.
Babies starfish it may seem innocent and cute. However, it turned out that they were small animals who liked to eat their own siblings for their survival, as it was reported Live Science and Science Times.
Researchers discover behavior cannibalism this in between Asterias forbesi or babies starfish Forbes accidentally. Initially, they try to understand how babies are starfish it reacts when they are confronted with the fierce crab in the laboratory.
However, professor Jon Allen from the William & Marry Department of Biology said they all started eating each other before they were even introduced to the crabs. So, they had to cancel that particular experiment.
As a result, Allen and his team switched studies to study previously unidentified phenomena among babies starfish this.
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Thousands of starfish washed up on the coast of Ramsgate, Kent, England.
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National Geographic once mentioned that the Forbes starfish, which are commonly found on the East Coast of the United States, can reach a length of 4.7 to 9.4 inches. These starfish undergo a process called metamorphosis, where they change from an immature form to an adult form such as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
According to Karina Brocco French, a doctoral student from the University of California at Irvine, while still in its larval form, this starfish looks like a strange little spaceship flying across the water. Brocco French who also worked in Allen’s lab during the research also added that starfish have body shapes like these strange little spacecraft for about a month before they metamorphose into young starfish and settle on the ocean floor.
Researchers already know that young starfish on the ocean floor will consume much smaller starfish larvae that sink to the ocean floor. But they don’t realize that the young starfish are also eating each other.
Although these young starfish are roughly the same size as each other, the larger ones always end up eating the smaller stars. Both Allen and French found that these young starfish were engaged in cannibalistic behavior from the time they were babies, as early as four days after they metamorphosed.
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Baby starfish perform this practice of cannibalism through the use of one of their multiple stomachs which is also identified as their heart belly. They use this special stomach to crush their food.
In general, cannibalism is not uncommon in the animal kingdom. More than 1.3000 species on this earth are known to have cannibalistic traits.
The authors of the study, the baby starfish, say the practice of cannibalism is likely to be found more widely among small animals, including the juvenile phases of animals previously not known to be cannibalistic. They have published the results of research on the cannibalism of baby starfish in the journal Ecology.
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