If you've ever had the bad luck of scraping your skin against coral in the ocean, you know how painful it can be. That's because in addition to its hard and spiny architecture, corals also contain venomous stinging cells called nematocysts. Now imagine scraping your lips against some coral. Sounds pretty painful, right? The same holds true for fish, where only 128 species out of 6,000 that live in reefs dine on coral. To find out how the coral-eating fish manage it, researchers at James Cook University in Australia took a closer look at the extraordinary lips on a tubelip wrasse.
.. Continue Reading Self-lubricating fish lips key to enjoying coral cuisineCategory: Biology
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from New Atlas http://ift.tt/2s0EkKu
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