Monday, April 20, 2009

Death during prime time

"We have a problem."

I know that undercurrent of Andres' voice. It means business. I was watching CNN, and he was peering intently into the Aquarium.

"The anemone is eating one of the fleas."

"What!" I exclaimed, rushing over.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The little tube anemone, one of the original three that had been carried over on the Anemone Rock, which had, if you will remember, climbed from the Rock up onto the back wall of the Sea Aquarium, was indeed, and in fact, sucking up one of the sea fleas.

The flea was dead as a doornail, no question about it. What creeped me out was the way it was being eaten. Its rear end was literally being dissolved by the sea anemone. Don't believe me? Here, check this out:


OK so it's blurry. But YOU try and focus on a 2-centimeter violent death on the back wall of a 10-gallon aquarium through refracting water currents with a fixed macro lens. Now I understand all those citizen photographers of the Lochness monster, Big Foot, and UFO's. It's hard to focus when you're excited.

Andres explained that sea anemones are actually poisonous. That's how they catch their prey. Their tentacles sting unsuspecting creatures as they float or swim by, then pull them into their mouths and digest them alive. Sounds like a lot of fun. Could you apply that technique to business development? I wonder.

Sea anemones not pretty flowers or plants that the uninitiated eye perceives them to be (yes that would be me 3 weeks ago). They are what you call "First Animals", meaning they have some serious seniority privileges in the evolutionary hierarchy of Life. In other words, move over T. Boone Pickens.

OK so let's go over this again. The lesson we learned today is,

SEA ANEMONE
+

SEA FLEA
=

NOT A HAPPY ENDING.


p.s. Oh, and by the way, little cute sea anemone. Thy name now be Fleakiller.

1 comment:

  1. You can say the Sea Anemone performed what it deem a needed enima on the Sea Flea. Yes I went and said it, the end defines the means in another chapter of "The Saltwater Diaries".

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