Midnight Attack!!

BeakerBob · Feb 5, 2011

It's odd how two corals can live side-by-side for years and never bother each other, then, all of a sudden, turn on each other.

Last night I caught one of my corals attacking a small bunch of yellow polyps that had never bothered it in the past. It threw out it's stomach, engulfed the polyps, digested and ate them away!

Here is the scene of the attack. You can see the larger coral to the right and the yellow polyps to the left:

A closer shot shows that the "innards" came from only one attacking polyp of the larger coral:

The digestion attack is under way and the entrails are visible as they cast their net over the polyps:

J&O'sdad · Feb 5, 2011

Wow amazing pictures.

FlowerhornNYC · Feb 5, 2011

Wow great shot bro

FishLipz · Feb 5, 2011

That's is so awesome. Nice pics of the murder.

JGoslee · Feb 5, 2011

That's an awesome pic! Is that an acan echinata doing the attacking?

jabberkaycee · Feb 5, 2011

That is just too cool that you caught it with pics. Amazing shots.

m and m · Feb 5, 2011

Wow I love the pictures what I'm more impressed with is that enchanta that thing looks amazing.

MarvinsReef · Feb 5, 2011

wOw! nice pics Bob. interesting what happens at night when the lights are off.

DallasJohn210 · Feb 5, 2011

Very cool pics! Great job....

firsttime · Feb 5, 2011

I lost my UFO micros to it.

VelasCorals · Feb 5, 2011

What did it look like in the morning? Any pictures of that? How many polyps did it end up eating?

btkrausen · Feb 5, 2011

Wow, thats just craziness. I've never seen anything like that before. Its amazing on what corals are capable of doing.

aalvarado87 · Feb 5, 2011

that is a pretty awesome shot how did you get it? Did you use some kind of spot light or what. I find those acan enchinatas to be an *** they really tend to go after some corals one munched on an acan frag i thought it was far enough away but nope. Really made me mad.

Michael7979 · Feb 5, 2011

Very cool pictures indeed!!
How lucky you had your camera ready.
Really like the colors on the attacking coral too!

Mr E Wrasse · Feb 5, 2011

WoW those are some sick pictures! those echinatas can reek some havoc when the lights go out... you should enter one of those pics in the POTM

143gadgets · Feb 5, 2011

Nice pics! Echinatas are nasty!!!

BeakerBob · Feb 6, 2011

JGoslee said:
That's an awesome pic! Is that an acan echinata doing the attacking?

Yes, that was my Orange Crush echinata eating some yellow polyps. What is unusual is that a nice coral is eating a cheap nuisance coral instead of the other way around. Usually, the more expensive prized coral is the one that gets taken down by a cheaper coral.

1st and 3rd picture was taken with a hand held flashlight. 2nd picture was taken with a remote flash for greater depth-of-field and to freeze any movement.