Little Killers: The Ferocious Lives of Puny Predators
little killers The FEROCIOUS Lives of Puny Predators Sneed B Collard III Millbrook Press Minneapolis
CHAPTER 1 KILLERS AROUND US A group of microscopic copepods Far from land hundreds of feet below the ocean surface a copepod KOH-peh-pod swims through dim twilight waters The copepod measures only a tenth of an inch 2 5 mm but has two ridiculously long antennae sweeping out from its head The animal uses its antennae to locate microscopic plants called phytoplankton Like a contented cow the copepod grazes on one tiny plant after another All seems peaceful until 4
in darts a nightmare out of a science fiction movie The sudden arrival looks like a slim transparent torpedo Instead of a face it has a menacing mouth surrounded by a nest of grasping hooks or spines It has stubby horizontal fins and a fanlike tail and by wriggling up and down it can accelerate to terrifying speeds Faster than you can shout free food the tiny torpedo seizes the copepod with its hooks and opens its mouth wide The copepod struggles to get away but it is no use In an instant the predator swallows the copepod whole ALARMING ARROWS The torpedo shaped animal is a chaetognath KEE-tug-nath or arrow worm Most people have never heard of chaetognaths but they are among Earth’s most ferocious predators Most chaetognaths live in the upper layers of the world’s oceans and most are planktonic they are carried from place to place by ocean currents Chaetognaths though can also live in tide pools on the seafloor and in the very deep sea The word chaetognath is Latin for bristle jawed An arrow worm right uses darting speed and grasping hooks to seize tiny fish and other prey 5
