Serpent Star Caught in the Act!

[bloodwar]

My Serpent Star has been caught red handed snacking on my snails.

I had wondered why i was seeing a few ( I had thought it was the blue legged hermit) snail shells tucked neatly away in one corner of the Live rock.

I never realized until today that he eats snails, I have had him for 4 years and this is the first I've noticed.

Interesting to watch but dang, I wish he wouldn't snack on the cleaner crew



DJ

Edit: out of 60 that just arrived he ate 1.

 

[Lev F.]

Maybe it was dead? Serpents don't usually snack on live snails, unless of course, it's a Green Serpent.

 

[rockindacheeks]

mine did! my coworkers watched mine eat 2 nassarius snails in my nano on my desk. He would perch his body up with his legs and wait til one crawled under him and would drop down for a little snack

 

[LeslieH]

Different species have different food preferences. You can't generalize by saying all (or even most) serpents do this or all brittles do that. Lots of them are predators that will eat everything in the right size range.

 

[ophiuroid]

What and how often do you feed this star? What color is it?

And these were new snails in the tank? It would not be uncommon at all for many animals to go after new arrivals which would "smell" stressed to them = easy meal. This is not unexpected at all, IMO.

I think it is equally safe to assume that some hermits ARE killing the snails as well. Often brittlestars get blamed for a lot, when they are not the sole culprits.

 

[npirate]

wow. I have a stack of shell I've notice too. I was thinking maybe the snail just aren't doing well in the tank and that someone was moving the shells. I'll have to keep an eye out for want it eaing them.