WEBVTT

00:00:06.475 --> 00:00:09.000
Oooh! There we go! There we go! Finally!

00:00:09.901 --> 00:00:14.280
So this looks like it is probably Evoplosoma.

00:00:15.128 --> 00:00:22.340
Most, almost every time that you see a sea star feeding on a coral like this it is probably Hyposteria or Evoplosoma.

00:00:23.194 --> 00:00:29.690
There's certainly two or three other genera which are predators on coral, but these are the most numerous ones.

00:00:30.636 --> 00:00:38.590
They're very efficient and we've seen them devour the polyps inside primnoids even, kind of like the way I just had my cookie.

00:00:38.790 --> 00:00:39.720
Anyway...

00:00:41.597 --> 00:00:47.730
But, looks like it's done quite an efficient job of cleaning off the animal from the bottom all the way to the top.

00:00:49.157 --> 00:00:53.840
It makes me wonder how old it is, because it's probably been around for quite a long time

00:00:54.040 --> 00:00:59.350
and for all I know it's spent the last year or so just devouring it's way up to the top of this animal.

00:00:59.550 --> 00:01:09.820
Hard to say, but there's other evidence that certain sea stars spend a year or longer just hanging out on a coral, eating its way through it.

