Sea turtles eat jellyfish like they are nothing.
For most of the world and most of the creatures living here, jellyfish are a sea creature to avoid. These almost alien creatures are made almost entirely of water, but often have stinging tentacles that can cause excruciating pain or even death in extreme circumstances. As a result, jellyfish do not have many natural predators.
One of the few animals that has no qualms about eating these strange creatures is the sea turtle. Not only do these marine reptiles eat jellyfish, some gorge themselves on them.
Today's video, which was shot near Lady Elliot Island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef displays just how well adapted turtles are for this. These divers keep rolling as a sea turtle completely devours the jellyfish, tentacles and all, in only a few minutes.
Considering how much jellyfish are feared around the world, this was an impressive feat of nature. It shows that it does not matter how nasty a critter is, there is almost always another animal willing to prey upon it. The turtle's attack was relentless, and it did not stop until it had consumed every tiny piece of the jellyfish. You probably never imagined sea turtles as savage killing machines before this video. We know we did not.
As amazing as the turtle's attack was, we were even more impressed that the half-eaten jellyfish could clearly been seen still trying to swim away. However, it is worth noting that jellyfish do not have any sort of nervous system to speak of. They also do not have brains, so it is unlikely the animal even realized it was being eaten, which is just wild to think about.
In any case, sea turtles do help to keep jellyfish populations from going out of control in many parts of the world. Loggerhead sea turtles almost exclusively prey on the things. Sounds like a good reason to preserve sea turtle populations to us!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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