Well, if you had read the documentation... :-). Actually, I'm pretty sure I've seen "perl automaticall converts *glob to a reference" (or maybe only *glob{IO}) somewhere, but I can't find it right now.
update Ok, 2 immediate downvotes, means, I guess, that the signal/noise nazis need some scraps:
"*foo{IO} is an alternative to the \*HANDLE mechanism" -- perlman perlref.
But there is a more explicit one somewhere, maybe someone else will remember seeing it recently and where.  At all events, nysus's example shows that this is so.

  p