A Thorny Starfish
p. 47 · Read in the full issue
For His Lunch
From SUE WENDT, in Suva There’s been a lot of theorising about it—but now the camera has actually captured the Crown of Thorns being devoured by a davui (the Fijian word for the conch shell) —so Fijian people now believe it.
The picture above was taken by Fiji Times photographer Bindar Pal at the Suva Aquarium, run by Mr. Harold Storck.
The starfish was put into a tank early one Sunday morning by aquarium attendant Mr. John Dhaniram.
“It soon went over to some black coral growing in the aquarium and began eating it,” he said. “When I returned two hours later, the davui, which had been in a far comer, had gone across to the starfish and was eating it.
“It had already torn off one of the starfish’s legs.”
The tank is equipped with a revolutionary filtration system developed by Harold Storck, which allows reef fish to be kept in the same tank for months without changing the water every few days.
The davui had been in the tank for about a year, but this was its first feed of starfish.