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Your're
looking at the Crown of Thorns Starfish. A fully-grown adult measures
nearly two feet across. The thorns you see are sharp and venomous- - covering
all of its limbs. It's hardly the sort of creature you'd want to stumble
upon
when you're at sea. The slightest graze against bare skin could leave you
in
excruciating pain. A large enough dose could mean paralysis, or even death.
As lethal as the Crown of Thorns is to a man, it is an even
greater threat to its own habitat. You see, the Crown of Thorns has a nasty
habit ofeating itself, and countless other species of marine life, out
of house and home.It feeds voraciously and endlessly, on living coral.
Coral that is a vital source
of life in the sea, providing not only food, but essential breeding grounds
for fish and other forms of marine life. Once found only on the large reefs
of the world, hordes of this unusual starfish have been sighted much closer
to home, in an area acknowledged as one of the richest marine reserves
in the world -
The Redang Archipelago, off the coast of Terengganu.
This sanctuary to over 2,000 species of fish and other sea creatures is
being
depleted of its coral reefs. And with this comes the biggest threat of
all -
the possible extinction of our natural marine heritage.
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