Hydra Digestive System
Hydra's are basic fresh water animals that prey upon the small moving animals that swim past its long tentacles. Because it cannot physically move its base, it swings and stretches its long arms about three to four times longer to catch its next meal. The steps in which the Hydra attacks and digests its food is as follows:
- Stretches its long tentacles out into open water.
- If it feels something touch its arm it instantly incircles it and injects it with a paralytic venom.
- The remaining arms crowd around and latch onto the food.
- They slowly retract and push the food into the gastrovascular cavity.
- In the gastrovascular cavity the food gets digested by special enzymes and acids.
- The remaining carcass of the body (skeletal structure) gets ejected from the body through the mouth.