Zombie Starfish | Nature's Weirdest Events - BBC

People began to notice these lovable creatures displaying some very disturbing behavior We've been filmed actually pulling off their own arms people have seen arms basically crawling away from the body This behavior has spread along the whole Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico And at least 20 different species of sea star are tearing themselves to pieces losing limbs left right and center And if that's not unsettling enough that attached arms then seem to take on a life of their own They're almost like zombies So what's taken over these adorable invertebrates and turned them into the Walking Dead? Well there are over 2,000 species of sea star worldwide Many of them have the familiar five arms, but they can have many more like this massive meter-wide sunflower starfish Arranged around a central disc every limb is identical and contains their vital organs Their underside is covered in flexible tube feet that they use to move around the seabed and pass food into their mouths Despite having no brain or bones sea stars have some amazing superpowers For a start they can see with their arms each limb has an eye spot, that's sensitive to light they can also spit out their stomach wrap it around their prey to dissolve it and then to digest it but What's driving these sea stars to pull themselves apart Melissa Redfield and her colleagues at the University of California and Santa Cruz are trying to figure out. What's going on? Sea stars losing their arms all over the place and crawling away is pretty terrifying If you imagine that that was some sort of animal on lands losing its arm and crawling away You know it would be quite frightening and a lot more obvious than what's going on out in the ocean Although it looks scary Several animals including lizards and slow worms can remove parts of their body with no ill effects if threatened by a predator they quickly shed their tails to avoid getting caught it's called otter Tomi and Sea stars have a similar ability if one of their limbs is nabbed by a predator. They can simply regrow a new one In fact they can lose up to three-quarters of their body and still survive Some sea stars have taken this one step further you see as long as a small portion of the central disc remains They can completely regenerate from a single arm But this doesn't explain the strange phenomenon on the west coast of America These starfish are dropping their arms with no sign of danger nearby Well sea stars have one final trick up their sleeve a few species reproduce this way simply splitting in half to make two individuals So could the starfish that appear to be whipping off their own arms actually be creating new life Unfortunately not Thousands of sea stars are disintegrating and dying littering the seabed along the whole Pacific coast in November 2014 Biologists announced that they found the culprit causing all of this devastation It was a newly discovered virus sea star Associated denser virus I say it's a newly discovered virus But in fact subsequent investigation of museum specimens show that it's been knocking around since the 1940s The trouble is no one knows why it's causing this horrendous outbreak right now Although the disease is killing off many sea stars it may not be a total disaster We do have a little glimmer of hope which is that this past spring and summer we have seen a big influx of Juveniles is likely because when many animals are stressed as a sort of last-ditch efforts to keep the population going they'll reproduce We won't know the final impact of this virus for some time, but we can only hope that nature's resilience overcomes this disease

Channel: BBC

Views: 10,427,902

Rating: 4.8115153 out of 5

Keywords: Nature's Weirdest Events (TV Program), chris packham, starfish, seastars, limbs, zombie, reproduction, virus, america, west coast, West Coast Of The United States (Region), bbc 2, bbc2, bbc two, survival, wasting disease, Nature, Oceans, Seas, Planet Earth, Planet Earth II, Blue Planet, Seven Worlds One Planet, David Attenborough

Id: KrfcglOmBYw

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 12 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/WrongSubreddit]

They said nothing about why they think the virus is responsible for the limb loss

[u/dysgraphical]

For a BBC show, this was terribly produced. They spoke about the actual culprit for very little near the end and didn't even specify the environmental impact all the littering has or what ecosystems it may be supporting. Not to mention most of the clip was spent summarizing facts about the giant sun star. And what's with the dramatic zoom ins on the scientist? It felt like watching a budget reality TV show episode.

[u/[deleted]]

This narrator talks like a baby.

"These adowable invetebwates"

"A life of theywe own"

[u/withmirrors]

Imagine sitting on the couch watching tv, when your arm suddenly detaches itself & goes out for a pizza.

[u/Atheist101]

lol that last line, "when many animals are stressed...they'll reproduce". Yup, pretty much sums up my life

[u/Burden_of_Hope]

That was painful to watch, it was like watching parliament prattle on.
"So why are seastars doing thing? We turn to sea star girl to find out. "
"A creature tearing off its arms would be pretty scary. (How many years of research did it take her to figure that out) Imagine if other creatures did that. "
"So whats causing the seastars derr der derr?"
" There are sea stars all over the sea! "
"Other animals do things to. Did you know that? Wow. "
"Hi Im some other dude, thanks for sitting through 5 minutes of bullshit, they do it because they have a virus. thumbs up"
Ahhh!

[u/[deleted]]

Mawaige oh sweet mawaige

[u/tobor_a]

That crab/crustacean@ 2:50 is cool as fuck man. Really cool video though.

[u/spoiled_generation]

Too bad the guy sounds like he's from Monty Python's Life Of Brian