Starfish 'ripping themselves apart'

It is akin to something out of a horror film.

Starfish along the North American Pacific Coast have been filmed ripping themselves limb from limb in a gory death that leaves the marine life nothing more than a pile of "mush".

Scientists began documenting the mysterious deaths last year after witnessing the arms of the starfish "walking away" from the rest of the body.

The anomaly has been dubbed the "sea star wasting syndrome".

Biologist Ben Miner studied a once-healthy starfish in a tank with a sick one and noted that they "just started ripping themselves apart."

"The arms just crawl away from the body," Mr Miner told The Blaze.

After the arms have separated from the body the starfish's guts then spill out causing a slow and painful death.

Scientists are now trying to work out if a pathogen or ocean acidification is causing the illness.

Solving the mass deaths is considered of vital importance to the scientific world because of the dire ecological effect it could have.

"These are ecologically important species," marine epidemiologist Drew Harvell said.

"When you lose this many sea stars it will certainly chance the seascape."

Source: The Blaze

Author: Natasha Lee, Approving editor: Matthew Henry