Pentaceraster
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Pentaceraster sp. on the coast of East Africa near Bagamoyo , Tanzania. |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pentaceraster | ||||||||||||
| Doederlein , 1916 |
Pentaceraster is a genus of starfish . The animals live in the Red Sea and the tropical Indo-Pacific . They sometimes occur in a very large density of individuals.
They are large, can reach a diameter of up to 40 centimeters, the five arms are short, triangular in cross-section, have a broad base and rounded tips. On the upper side of the body disc and the arms there are large bumps or blunt spines, which are almost always colored. The body disc is usually patterned like a grid. The animals are often very colorful.
Pentaceraster species mainly eat molluscs , but also worms, crustaceans, other echinoderms, carrion, detritus and algae. They live mainly on soft and sandy soils at depths of 2 to 20 meters.
The starfish multiply by releasing their gametes into the open water. Asexual reproduction is not known.
species
- Pentaceraster affinis (Müller & Troschel, 1840)
- Pentaceraster alveolatus (Perrier, 1875)
- Panamanian pimple starfish ( Pentaceraster cumingi ) (Gray, 1840)
- Green pimple starfish ( Pentaceraster mammilatus ) (Audouin, 1826)
- Pentaceraster obtusatus
- Pentaceraster regulus (Müller & Troschel, 1842)
- Red pimple starfish ( Pentaceraster tuberculatus ) (Müller & Troschel, 1842)
literature
- Harry Erhardt / Horst Moosleitner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 3 , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-103-8
- Harry Erhardt / Hans A. Baensch : Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 4 , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-023-6
- Harry Erhardt / Hans A. Baensch: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 5 , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-115-1
- Svein A. Fossa / Alf Jacob Nilsen: Coral reef aquarium Volume 6 , Schmettkamp Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-928819-18-6
