How Fish Eat

1905

The curious ways in which fishes eat form a study. Some fishes have teeth, and some have none at all. In some the teeth are found upon the tongue, in some in the throat, and in some in the stomach. Some draw in their food by suction; the sturgeon is one of this class. The jellyfish absorbs its food by wrapping its body around the prey it covets. The starfish fastens itself to its victim, turns its stomach wrong side out and engulfs its dinner without the formality of swallowing it through a mouth first, much less asking permission.

Then there is a peculiar little crab — the horseshoe crab — which chews up its food with its legs or claws before it passes the morsels over to its mouth, while other crabs and lobsters masticate their food with their jaws, and afterward complete the work with an extra set of teeth which they find conveniently located in their stomachs.

So there are all sorts of methods for those regularly toothless, and the fishes which have teeth show almost as great a diversity in the number, style and arrangement of them. The ray or skate has a mouth set transversely across its head.