Nature is filled with horrible beasts that look like they want to kill you (and in fact very much do). But at least those nightmares are honest, and look the part. The real assholes are those animals that look completely harmless -- adorable even -- but possess secret powers that expose them as the goddamned monsters and borderline space aliens that they truly are. For example ...

6 Starfish Are Flesh-Eating Predators With Detachable Stomachs of Acidic Doom

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For many of us, starfish are little more than blind, deaf, headless, brainless creatures that feel just as at home dried up on the beach as they do rambling along in the water. If they could talk, they would absolutely be Patrick from SpongeBob. It's almost impossible for them to look less intimidating than they already do. That, unfortunately, is part of their cruel master plan. Behold a starfish's eating habits:

Mad as a Marine Biologist

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Still more dignified than Golden Corral.

Yep, starfish are voracious meat lovers, consuming anything they can catch: oysters, fish, snails. Shit, if we were small enough, they'd probably get us, too. But perhaps you're wondering how they actually, you know, digest stuff, since they lack teeth, jaws, or anything even remotely resembling a mouth. Simple: They spit their sticky, acidic stomach clean out of their body, catching their prey and digesting it for hours, sometimes days.

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And the Sarlacc waited for Boba Fett to fall into its mouth like a goddamn amateur.

Other starfish, like the appropriately named ambush starfish, trick their prey by raising themselves up like an adorable little tent. Just when whatever's on the menu thinks it's found a sweet little bunker to hide from predators in, it's murdered via sheer irony, and then slowly digested in horribly painful ways -- the usual routine.