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Sea Star (formerly Starfish) is a generic name for star shaped species in the echinodermata phylum. This particular specimen is now more correctly termed a Brittle Star (or Basket Star) in the ophiuroidea class.
I have found several pictures similar to this on the internet but none have been named/identified scientifically.
Beach on Spain's southern Atlantic coast.
Spotted on Jun 13, 2014
Submitted on Nov 5, 2014
6 Comments
Just curious, I did not see this on the 13th nor until now, has it been delayed?
Thank you! Your photo will be highlighted on November 13th. Afterwards, you’ll be able to see your photo for about a month in the Pic of the Day Collection (www.greatnatureproject.org/collections/1...). Thanks again for contributing to The Great Nature Project!
Thanks for your interest in this spotting mika, I have added some more information on this and it now appears to be a Brittle Star as opposed to a Sea Star, though both are in the same phylum, and often generically termed Sea Stars or starfish.
I have so far been unable to find out the species name.
It was washed up on the beach and appeared to have lost part of some legs, although they often do this to avoid predation.
I would be happy to see it featured as your spotting of the day. Hopefully this will help to find its true identification.
Congratulations! We would like to highlight this photo as National Geographic’s Great Nature Project Pic of the Day! It will be featured in the lower left corner on The Great Nature Project website (www.greatnatureproject.org), as well as on the NG Education FaceBook page.
We will attribute this photo to you by using your username, Malcolm Wilton-Jones. Once we hear back from you (either here or via email to GreatNatureProject@ngs.org), we’ll let you know which date we’ll highlight your photo. Thank you for sharing your observations with The Great Nature Project!
OK, not being a biologist I had not realised there was a difference. I read that there was a move to change Starfish to Sea Star and that these were listed as Asteroidea. I'd not heard of Ophiuroidea before you mentioned it, so is the term Sea Star still correct as a generic name? Should this be changed to Brittle Star? I've been reading this web-page http://echinoblog.blogspot.com.es/2009/1...
I've learnt more since joining Project Noah 3 years ago than I learned in school 60-70 years ago!
Try looking at Ophiuroidea also