Eel Got Alien Jaw

Remember the movie Alien, where the monster has a second jaw that comes out of its throat? Well, it turns out that Mother Nature had thought of it first:

In a lightning-fast swimming maneuver, slender-bodied moray eels clamp down on their prey with a forward set of toothy jaws. In almost the same instant, slender muscles sling an inner set of grapple-like jaws onto the prey — which can be nearly as wide as the eel itself—and pull it towards the animal’s gut.

Jokingly, Mehta noted that the mechanism was oddly similar to that seen in creatures from the movie "Alien." "One person I showed it to even asked me if there wasn’t a second eel inside," she said.

Links: MSNBC | News@Nature (with video) – Thanks Inna!