They are similar to feeding habit of sea cucumber and sea hare in which they will take in food and expel waste as they feed. Starfish swallow their food as they dont have teeth and typically digest food before they go for moreI know starfish can eat things much bigger then them and may spend hours on a meal in the wild. But often times starfish don’t eat enough/starve in aquariums! Well for the past 12 hours almost my starfish has been munching away on part of an algae pellet…I don’t typically feed them the whole thing and I feed a few times a week or so. I don’t want take it away from him or maybe I should? He has a food baby now lol.
Oh interesting thanks!
I know it hasn’t haha. But I do know they are voracious eaters lol. Some eat like 50 clams a day and some entire coral reefs lol.
I also know they push their stomachs out and digest it outside their bodies.
This is dependent on species. Some species (typically the predatory ones) swallow their food whole and spit out what can't be digested (such as snail or bivalve shells) and others evert their stomachs and digest the food externally.
Well mine does. And from what I’ve read in multiple places they all do to some degree push their stomach out. And break it down with a special enzyme making it easier to eat.
Yeah, I added some references above (including one from Monterey Bay Aquarium) that demonstrate the internal digestion. If you look around a bit, you can even find videos of stars doing things like swallowing mussels whole and spitting out the shells after.
But they all use their stomaches and can push them out either to suck the food in or break it down. This is an interesting video: https://www.deepseanews.com/2012/09...ls-shell-as-it-is-slowly-inexorably-consumed/
Starfish are just weird and interesting creatures lol often times not a lot is know about some of the nearly 2,000 species lol. Like mine.
LOL!
Oh that reminds me Patrick is meant to be dumb in SpongeBob for a reason it’s a reference of starfish not having a brain.
Also I love the aesthetic of the corals! How old is your tank?
I won't tell him you said that.LOL!
I'm at 15 months now
True (for Asteroidea - sea stars, not for Ophiuroidea - brittle stars, just for anyone who's curious), and many (possibly all) of the species that typically swallow their food whole are also capable of external digestion, they just don't always utilize it (which method is better depends on the biology of the star and it's prey, so sometimes they'll use one method and sometimes another).
And brittle stars are not true starfish lol. And starfish are not fish. Reasons why scientists like the name sea stars more.
