Ok, this is just plain creepy. I've always thought that one of the things I never wanted to meet up with was a moray eel. The way they hide in a hole and play carnivorous jack-in-the-box was always a bit troubling. It just got worse. Moray eels, it turns out, have an extra set of jaws inside the back of their throats – just like the monsters in the movie Alien.
Enormous monsters scuttle across the screen in the movie "Alien," devouring humans with a second, saliva-dripping set of jaws thrust from the back of their throats. Although the creatures are contrived, a new study shows that moray eels use such a set of jaws to eat.
The discovery shows that morays use the second, hidden set of jaws to drag unsuspecting meals to their doom—a behavior unique among the eels' bony fish relatives, who suck in meals like vacuum cleaners.
New high-speed videos show a set of pharyngeal jaws, located in the back of an eel's throat, springing into action.
"We had no idea how moray eels were able to swallow prey before this study," said Rita Mehta, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California in Davis……..
…….In a lightning-fast swimming maneuver, slender-bodied moray eels clamp down on their prey with a forward set of toothy jaws. In almost the same instant, slender muscles sling an inner set of grapple-like jaws onto the prey—which can be nearly as wide as the eel itself—and pull it towards the animal's gut.
Well, that's it for snorkeling! (Video here.)
“We had no idea how moray eels were able to swallow prey before this study,” said Rita Mehta, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California in Davis……..”
It never ceases to amaze me how scientists are always the last to know about something non-scientists knew about for several hundred years. They should try asking us fishermen sometime. I bet there’s a lot of stuff we know that will just boggle their mind.
You knew about this and didn’t tell us?
Of course he didn’t tell us. He wants the eels to inject their hellish spores into us, emerging as full-fledged killing machines.
Uh, oh. I’ve seen that movie.
In fact, here it is:
http://www.angryalien.com/0704/alienbunnies.html