It may be strange to see starfish hidden talents. Starfish are able to squeeze foreign bodies along the length of their body cavities and out through their arm tips. This newly discovered talent gives insight into how certain animals are able to quickly heal themselves.
Researchers observed the Starfish behaviour by randomly selecting them. They tag some starfish (scientific name: Asterias rubens), reidentify and study the starfish. The tags were injected into the starfish, as a veterinarian tags a dog or cat.
Researchers observed some strange behaviour, every time when they put a tag into a starfish, the tag was ridded from starfish within a few days. It came out directly through the skin; the starfish simply pushed it out through the skin at the end of one arm and then went on as if nothing had happened.
Many organisms are capable of removing some foreign objects from their body. For example, splinter can be push out of a finger by itself. However, when the foreign object is lodged deep inside the organism, like a bullet between the internal organs, most organisms have no way to get rid of it without surgery.
The starfish do not attempt to push the tag out of the hole in the skin through which it was injected. Instead they let the tag wander seemingly randomly between the organs for a while, before they finally squeeze it out through an arm tip.
Starfish physiology differs in many respects from ours. They have an external skeleton and decentralized nervous system, and their eyes are placed on the end of each arm. But like us, they have a body cavity filled with organs, and it is through the body cavity that the tag moves before it reaches the tip of an arm, the researchers conclude.
Previous research has documented that starfish are able to regenerate whole limbs and organs, but this trick of ejecting deeply embedded foreign bodies has never before been demonstrated in any organism.