Gnarled starfish

Gnarled starfish
Two gnarled sea stars on the coast of Sulawesi near Manado
Systematics
Class : Starfish (asteroidea) Order : Valve stars (Valvatida) Subordination : Granulosina Family : Roller, pillow and knobbed starfish (Oreasteridae) Genre : Protoreaster Type : Gnarled starfish
Scientific name
Protoreaster nodosus
( Linnaeus , 1758)

The gnarled sea ​​star ( Protoreaster nodosus ) is a very large starfish that can reach 40 centimeters in diameter . It lives on the coasts of the tropical Indo-Pacific from East Africa and Madagascar via Sri Lanka and Indonesia to tropical, northern Australia , on the island coasts of the southern Pacific and north to Japan .

features

The gnarled Walzenseestern is heavily armored, its short, powerful arms are tapered and rounded at the front. Its color is usually whitish, cream-colored, orange or red, yellow and blue shades are also less common. On the high back of the body and the arms there are short, strong, dark spines.

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Way of life

Knotty sea stars live on sandy or muddy bottoms at depths of 3 to 20 meters. They feed carnivorously on mussels and snails , but also go on sponges , soft corals , bog animals , tube worms and other bottom-dwelling invertebrate organisms. They digest their food outside of the body in their everted stomach.

Since they look very decorative even when dead, they are often collected, dried and sold to tourists.

Dried.

literature

• Erhardt, Moosleitner: Mergus sea water atlas. Volume 3, Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-103-8 .
• Schumacher, Hinterkircher: Lower marine animals. BLV, ISBN 3-405-14854-5 .

Web links

Commons : Knotiger Walzenseestern ( Protoreaster nodosus )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files