That bold act is accomplished by the sea hedgehog. Getting its name from the land hedgehog, a small insect-eating mammal with sharp spikes on its back, much like a porcupine, the sea hedgehog is a small, roundish sea creature related to the starfish.
It has spines on its skin that look like the hedgehog’s spikes, and it uses these spines for the same reason, for protection against its enemies.
Because the sea hedgehog is small, it is sometimes swallowed by a shark. When the spiny creature reaches the shark’s belly, it swells up with air like a balloon.
The points of its spines pierce the shark’s stomach walls and rip a hole in it. The sea hedgehog can then swim out to safety through the hole, leaving the shark badly injured or even dead.
Although sea hedgehogs are rarely more than a foot long, they have been known to kill sharks more than 20 feet long!
Related Posts
-
Which has more pizza a ten-inch pizza or two seven-inch pizzas?
Next time you hear someone complain about never using the math you learned in school in real life, remember this question. You'd think the two smaller pies would have more, but that would…
-
How Sensitive Is a Shark’s Sense Of Smell and Can a Shark Smell Blood From Far Away In the Water?
Sharks can definitely smell blood from quite a distance. Sharks have an extremely sensitive sense of smell for food in the water. A few molecules can be enough to draw a shark. A…
-
What Sea Creature Borrows Its Neighbor’s House?
This underwater borrower is the hermit crab. Because the hermit crab has a soft part on its body that is not protected by its shell, it borrows the shell of another creature to…
-
Which Male Sea Creature Lives Off His “Wife”?
Even though the male and female of most animals are the same size, there is one creature that shows such a remarkable difference in size between the male and female that you'd never…
-
What Is a “Sphinx”, Where Did the Female Winged Creature Come From, and What Does it Mean in Greek?
Although the statue at Giza in Egypt is the most famous Sphinx, there is another. According to Greek mythology, the original Sphinx was a female winged creature with the body of a lion…
-
What did the Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit in Alaska that caused the huge oil spill?
The Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit a reef in Alaska, not an iceberg in 1989. They have reefs in Alaska, too, you know. The oil spill was one of the biggest in history…
