Sea Anemone Spotted Devouring a Bird in Wild Video

A truly wild video shows something relatively few people have seen—a sea anemone eating a bird. Sebrina Coleman shared a short clip of an anemone with a bird’s foot sticking out of its center, where these marine invertebrates pull food using their stinging tentacles. You can also see some feathers protruding from the anemone.

“This was really the catch of a lifetime. For me and the sea anemone,” wrote Coleman in her Instagram post sharing the video. Tons of people commented how shocked they were to realize that these stationary, sponge-looking animals could manage to devour an entire bird. And how did it catch a bird, anyway?

[RELATED: Today I Learned: Rattlesnakes Drink Water off Each Other’s Heads]

Sea anemones are predatory animals that eat small animals like plankton, small fishes, small crabs, and sea stars. However, it’s not unprecedented for a sea anemone to eat a bird that ends up close enough to snatch with its tentacles, which automatically fire with the slightest touch. We’ll never know exactly how this happened, but it’s possible the bird was already dead when it washed into the anemone’s reach.

Watch a sea anemone eating a bird here:

A truly wild video shows something relatively few people have seen—a sea anemone eating a bird. Sebrina Coleman shared a short clip of an anemone with a bird’s foot sticking out of its center, where these marine invertebrates pull food using their stinging tentacles. You can also see some feathers protruding from the anemone.

“This was really the catch of a lifetime. For me and the sea anemone,” wrote Coleman in her Instagram post sharing the video. Tons of people commented how shocked they were to realize that these stationary, sponge-looking animals could manage to devour an entire bird. And how did it catch a bird, anyway?

[RELATED: Today I Learned: Rattlesnakes Drink Water off Each Other’s Heads]

Sea anemones are predatory animals that eat small animals like plankton, small fishes, small crabs, and sea stars. However, it’s not unprecedented for a sea anemone to eat a bird that ends up close enough to snatch with its tentacles, which automatically fire with the slightest touch. We’ll never know exactly how this happened, but it’s possible the bird was already dead when it washed into the anemone’s reach.

Watch a sea anemone eating a bird here: