Tiger Cowrie ate my Green star polyps!

[LCDRDATA]

Our first soft coral in the tank was a nice mat of green star polyps. A few weeks ago we noticed some kind of hair algae/bryopsis growing in them, and have been trying (with limited success) to knock that back by reducing phosphates. You can see some of this at the lower left of this photo:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/194807Polyp_mat.jpg

The entire face of the rock at the lower left used to be covered in this algae; it was subsequently cleaned off by our tiger cowrie, who ate his way across it and then chewed up at least some of the algae between the individual polyps without damaging them. Last night we observed him on the right-hand side of the mat, and when my wife looked this morning she saw this:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/194807Polyp_mat__mowed_.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/194807Polyp_mat__mowed__2.jpg

I guess the cowrie developed a taste for the polyps themselves, with this whole area cut off down to the mat and even a tear in the mat itself as you can see. Has anyone else ever heard of this? Our guidebook (R.L. Shimek, Marine Invertebrates) describes tiger cowries as "Herbivorous - harmless to other invertebrates." Does anyone know if the polyps will come back and/or migrate to the "mowed" section of mat? If so, how long might it take and is there anything we can do to assist the process (other than keeping the cowrie off them)? Any other thoughts or advice? Thanks!

[Ooulophilia]

Get rid of the cowrie - they are effective algae when small, but become very omnivorous when they get larger - I have seen them mow a trail through zoanthids before, and they have a taste for many different softies.

[Myrddraal]

Did it actually eat the polyps, or are they just withdrawn and sulking?

[LCDRDATA]

I wish the picture was a little clearer - but while some of the polyps, particularly around the outside of the "mowed" area, are withdrawn tightly, many have been eaten, sheared off at the mat. You can see the big hole in the polyp mat, especially in the last photo - that was solid purple flesh before.

On an unrelated note, I've got to ask - where in Albuquerque are you? We lived there from 1995-2000 near Hubert Humphrey Elementary/Tanoan.