Basket Star

Description:

Basket stars are a taxon of brittle stars. They are treated as a suborder Euryalina or order Euryalida. Many of them have characteristic repeatedly branched arms. They generally live in deep sea habitats. In the wild they may live up to 35 years. They weigh up to 5 kilograms (11 lb). Like other echinoderms, basket stars lack blood and achieve gas exchange via their water vascular system. This extraordinary invertebrate has a mass of twisting and turning arms that can measure a meter long. Each branch has tiny sharp hooks, allowing the creature to capture prey. It feasts mainly on zooplankton. Basket stars are able to grow their limbs back if they are broken or chopped off by predators – an ability as freakish as it is amazing.

Habitat:

Most species are found in deep waters up to few hundred meters depth, but some can be found in shallows.

Notes:

I have seen some of them at very shallow depth, as shallow as 5-6 meters, in Palau, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. They usually hides under coral crevices during day time and can be seen out hunting at night time. Pic#1 shows a close-up of one of the hundreds of arms/branches. They are very thin/scrawny. Pic#2 shows the whole basket star.