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As for cleverness in attacking and catching prey, we may perceive subtle examples of it in many different species. The starfish,[Aristotle], Historia Animal. v. 15 (548 a 7 f.), an interpolated passage; nor can we be certain that it was known to Plutarch. See also Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 181. for example, knowing that everything with which it comes in contact dissolves and liquefies, offers its body and is indifferent to the contact of those that overtake or meet it. You know, of course, the property of the torpedoOr electric ray or crampfish: for the ancient references see Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ic. 37 (620 b 12-23); Glossary, pp. 169-172; Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 36; ix. 14; Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 143; Mair, L.C.L. Oppian, p. lxix, and on Hal. ii. 56; iii. 149; Philo, 30 (p. 115); Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 48; Boulenger, World Natural History, pp. 189 f.: not only does it paralyse all those who touch it, but even through the net creates a heavy numbness in the hands of the trawlers. And some who have experimented further with it report that if it is washed ashore alive and you pour water on it from above, you may perceive the numbness mounting to the hand and dulling your sense of touch by way of the water which, so it seems, suffers a change and is first infected. Cf. the upward infection of the basilisk, Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 78. Having, therefore, an innate sense of this power, it never makes a frontal attack or endangers itself; rather, it swims in a circle around its prey and discharges its shocks as if they were darts, thus poisoning first the water, then through the water the creature which can neither defend itself nor escape, being held fast as if by chains and frozen stiff.
