My basket star tried to eat a mandarin dragonet!!

[Drachs]

I was so freaked out a I didn't get a picture. About half an hour after lights out I go to check on the basket star as I've only had him about a week.... and tightly entwined in his arms was my madarin dragonet!!

The dragonet was completly motionless and I was afraid it may have been dead.

I had to free the mandarin by hand and boy he took off like a shot once I got those tentacles unwrapped!

I'm not crazy! My girlfriend saw it too!

Weirdly enough, there was also a decorator crab in the mass of tentacles, I don't know if he was cought or just hanging out, but I moved him as well.

 

[LeslieH]

Very interesting. Basket stars aren't supposed to eat fish - I'll have to ask our echinoderm curator about it. This article by Rob Toonen http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen17.html has some useful information about feeding them.

 

[Freed]

Sounds like you still would have had a live mandarin and crab in the morning.

 

[philter4]

What probably happened is the mandarin swam into the open arms of the star and the stars reaction was to close up. I don't think the star tried to eat the fish or the crab, but if you put your fingers into an open one they close up fast, a reaction to being touched, not trying to feed.

 

[LeslieH]

There are some antarctic & deep water basket stars which catch krill (small shrimp-like organisms) but for the most part they feed on plankton. Some are thought to produce paralyzing chemicals from gland cells which might explain why the dragonet wasn't moving.

 

[Freed]

That's what mandarins do when they sleep-motionless.

 

[Drachs]

Yea, it was very disturbing scene. The mandarin all wrapped up and the decorator crab walking through the mass of tentacles.

It was bazaar.

If it happens again, I'll get you guys pictures! But it was probably just a complete fluke.