.
FEED[NG OF MARINE ANIMALS
203
is just as steadily replaced, new material being added to the
hind end of the ribbon continuously,
It variés verymuch
in dierent animals depending on their particular type of
,
food, thus in the animals we have been discussing it is broad,.
the better for scraping over wide surfaces, while in the
carnivorous snails, which we shall discuss later, it is much
_
narrower.
'
PREYING ANIMALS
_
Great numbers -of animals in the sea prey upon other
animals either living or deadi‘ All the anemones and
jellysh, in spite
of
"
their delicacy and great
G
__
_
beauty, are really vor—
.
“
.
J
acious carnivores. They
—
"'
seize their prey, which
'
M
may be
from
'
-
,
worms to small sh, by
;
‘
means of their tentacles,
:
_
which are armed with
-—
;
'
.
batteries
of
minute
R
“
cells/’ each.
of
which consists of a t1ny
be pushed forward through mouth—opening.
bag lled with
uid
‘
'
-
and drawn out into a ne whip—like process which lies c01led
within the bag.
When they are touched by any
animal
these nettle cells explode and the.thread, which ls usually
barbed, is shot violently out and into the body of the prey.
_
The uid in which the thread has been bathed is poisonous
and some of this enters the wound causing paraly5is.
The
prey is then pushed into the mouth
and taken into the
_
stomach, where it is digested with remarkable speed
(Fig. 45). , Many jellysh will
seize and swallow animals
larger thanthemselyes, seizing young
sh With then”- dehoate