As I'm currently preoccupied with sessions at the National Marine Educators Association conference in Savannah, I don't have time to do Moray Monday justice this week. Besides, you can still reflect back on last week's wonderful post. But to keep you moray fans entertained, I thought I'd post an apropos Moray Monday image that was forwarded to me by Liz Foote, CORAL Hawaii Field Manager.It's obviously a moray, but look closer. There are sea urchin spines protruding from the head of this specimen. Did the vertebrate make a poor choice for dinner and get served by a humble urchin? Or did the invertebrate put up a good fight, but end up in the moray digestive tract? Impossible to tell from the evidence. So let's call this a draw.
So if I'm keeping up with the stats, that makes this:
Inverts: 11
Verts: 2
Stalemate: 1
3 comments:
Depends on whether those spines were laced with poison...
Did Liz see the moray after the pic was taken?? Hmm?????
I've seen morays before with spines, and a white response all around the puncture areas.
I'm guessing this guy had just had his run-in before I encountered him? I wasn't able to keep monitoring it or get any other pictures because I was cruising down a transect line collecting data.
Anyway, how about a couple lol captions Rick? I am thinking FAIL or DO NOT WANT...
Given the location of the spines I would guess that the moray inadvertently scrapped against an urchin. As much as I love urchins, I have a hard time visualizing how an urchin managed to get its spines way up there.
Though I now have this funny image of this moray snuggling up to an urchin like a cat against a leg.
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