The internet had a collective freakout the other day when a Redditor posted this bizarre video of a Nemertea, or ribbon worm, which shoots a proboscis (elongated nose) out of a hole above its mouth to grasp onto their prey.
When not stretched out like an alien life form, the proboscis normally sits in “a fluid-filled chamber above the gut,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Let’s watch that again:
And here’s a description of how it works from NCSU:
When the animal senses a prey organism nearby, a circular muscle layer around the proboscis sheath rapidly and vigorously contracts. This contraction forces the fluid from the proboscis sheath into the proboscis and, in the process, literally turns it inside out, blowing it out of the proboscis sheath. The proboscis will rapidly (within a second or so) wrap itself around the prey, which is then drawn to the mouth and eaten.
“When attacking prey, they compress their bodies to push out the proboscis like the finger of a latex glove turned inside-out,” the Smithsonian reported.
(via The Daily What and BuzzFeed)
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