Thought to be responsible for 40 per cent of coral cover loss in the past 30 years, the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish is without a doubt one of the main threats facing the Great Barrier Reef. But now scientists may have discovered a new way to repel them using the scent of their natural nemesis, the Triton Sea Snail. With one whiff enough to send the starfish running (or should that be crawling?) for its life, University of the Sunshine Coast senior lecturer Scott Cummins explains the Triton Snail is one of its most feared natural predators. “We put [the snail] next to the crown-of-thorns starfish and they reacted quite obviously,” he said. “They started to run away, which is quite an important finding because it tells us they do have very poor eyesight, they are sensing or smelling their main predator.” All that remains is for the team to successfully isolate and synthesise the molecule and then Cummins says this sort of repellent could be used to push the starfish off the reef and into areas where they could be destroyed. “We want to narrow it down to exactly what the molecule is then hopefully we can take that and put it into some slow release system on the reef.” More HERE
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