Eating its way up the food chain

An orange-speckled snail, Cyphoma gibbosum, munches its way up one of its favorite meals, a purple gorgonian with brown grass-like polyps named Biareum asbestinum, known locally as “dead man’s fingers” because of its knobby, branched appearance. This photo–taken at 15 feet depth at Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas–is the subject of a recent paper on the PLoS One Web site.
(Photo by Kristen Whalen, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)