Bright brittle star
| Bright brittle star | ||||||||||||
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Bright brittle star ( Ophiura albida ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ophiura albida | ||||||||||||
| ( Forbes , 1839) |
The Bright brittle star ( Ophiura albida ) (also called "Common brittle star") is a brittle star of the species Ophiura in the family Ophiuridae and order Ophiurida .
distribution
The bright brittle star occurs, often in large numbers, in the (western) Baltic Sea (up to Kiel Bay ), the North Sea , the European side of the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean .
features
The bright brittle star has a round body disc (which reaches a diameter of up to 1.5 cm) and five slender, scaly-looking arms (which reach a length of up to six centimeters) that thicken and short evenly from the tip to the body Have spines on the underside. At the point of attachment of the arms there are two light-colored limestone plates, from which the name ("albida") of the species is derived. The color of the (on the top) uniformly colored individuals varies from light beige to red to dark brown-red tones. On the underside, the species is much lighter in color than on the upper side, usually a light beige.
Way of life
The bright brittle star lives on sediment and sandy soils, or in their uppermost layer, where it feeds as an omnivore in the sediment as a hunter of small creatures living in the ground such as invertebrates ( mussels , crustaceans ) as well as carrion and detritus .
He is able to move very quickly with the help of his very flexible arms; Animals that have turned around can turn around quickly.
The species is bisexual, fertilization takes place extracorporeally, the young animals go through a phase as pelagic larvae. In the western Baltic Sea, the species is no longer able to reproduce due to the low salt content, but it gets there in the larval stage.
The life expectancy of the bright brittle star is estimated to be up to three years.
literature
- Peter Jonas - Underwater World Baltic Sea, Hamburg 1997
- Janke Kremer - Dune, Beach and Wadden Sea, Stuttgart 2010
