Brittle star
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Brittle Starfish | ||||||
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"Ophiodea" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904
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Scientific classification | ||||||
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Brittle stars are much like sea stars. They are also invertebrates (meaning they don't have spines or backbones), they belong to the same family of animals (Echinodermata), and they also have some kind of radial symmetry in their bodies. Usually, they have 5 arms that can grow very long (up to 60cm, on the largest species). Unlike sea stars however, they live much deeper in the ocean. There seem to be brittle stars even at depths below 6000m, what scientists call abysmal depth. Generally, brittle stars live below 500m of depth.
There are about 1.500 different species.
The Brittle star can be three to eight inches.
There are two different (closely related) groups, brittle stars (Ophiurida) and basket stars (Eurialida). Basket stars usually live in the deeper parts of the range. Brittle stars (and Basket stars) are either scavengers or detrivores.
A brittle star on a sponge |