- There are many different types of sea stars with many different shapes,
colors and sizes.
- Most sea stars have five arms or multiples of five. The arms radiate
from a central disc. A few species have multiples of six.
- Their backs are covered with knobby spines and their undersides with
rows of tiny tube feet. Each tube foot is tipped with a small suction
cup which helps it hang on tight to things and pry open mussels or clams.
- It can stay motionless on a rock for weeks
- Sea stars eat by inserting their inside-out stomach into a shell
and digesting their prey. When the meal is done they retract their stomach
back into their bodies.
- Diet -barnacles, chitons, snails, urchins, limpets, sponges and sea
anemones
- They are commonly dull shades of yellow or orange, but there are
many brightly colored ones as well Predators -birds, sea otters and
humans who collect them
- When they lose an arm, it can grow back.
- When eating, the sea star may turn its stomach inside out to reach
into the shell of its prey.
- Sea stars vary in size from under 1/2 in. (1.3 cm) to over 3 ft (90
cm) in diameter
- There are about 2,000 species distributed throughout the world, mostly
in shallow water along rocky coasts.
- Sea stars shed their eggs and sperm into the water, and fertilization
occurs externally, producing a swimming, bilaterally symmetrical larva.
- A single female may produce over 2 million eggs in one spawn, but
the eggs and larvae form part of the plankton on which many marine animals
feed, and few survive
- The underside of the body bears a mouth at the center and a groove
running along each arm.
- The body of most species consists of a central disk from which radiate
a number of tapering arms-usually five, but up to 25 in some species
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