Chocolate starfish
| Chocolate starfish | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chocolate starfish ( Nidorellia armata ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Nidorellia armata | ||||||||||||
| Gray , 1840 |
The chocolate starfish ( Nidorellia armata ) is a large starfish that can reach 23 centimeters in diameter . It lives in the eastern Pacific from California to Peru and the Galápagos Islands .
features
The arms of the chocolate starfish are short, have a broad base and taper to a point. Arms and the body, which appears to be inflated like a pillow, together form a pentagon with indented sides. They are cream-colored, with a chocolate-brown markings that run as stripes from the middle of the body to the tips of the arms and along the base of the arm, patterning the body between the arms as spots. There are short, strong spines on the top of the body. The chocolate starfish reaches a body diameter of 23 centimeters.
Way of life
Chocolate starfish live on rocky subsoil covered with algae and seagrass at depths of 5 to 70 meters. They feed on bottom-dwelling invertebrates , which they digest with their everted stomach, and on algae. Chocolate starfish are hosts of the commensal partner shrimp Periclimenes soror .
literature
- Erhardt / Baensch: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 5 , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-115-1