Acquisition and use of nematocysts by cnidarian predators.

Although toxic, physically destructive, and produced solely by cnidarians, nematocysts are acquired, stored, and used by some predators of cnidarians. Despite knowledge of this phenomenon for well over a century, little empirical evidence details the mechanisms of how (and even why) these organisms use organelles of cnidarians. However, in the past 20 years a number of published experimental investigations address two of the fundamental questions of nematocyst acquisition and use by cnidarian predators: (1) how are cnidarian predators protected from nematocyst discharge during feeding; and (2) how are the nematocysts used by the predator?