Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
It grows to a diameter of about 30 to 40 centimetres (12 to 16 in). The aboral or upper surface has a patchwork of closely packed spiny plates. The square ones near the edge of the arms are cream coloured and the irregular ones in a band running down the middle of the arms are grey. The margins of the arms are fringed with short white spines.
Coscinasterias calamaria is the largest starfish in southern Australia and New Zealand. Although called the eleven-armed sea star there can be any number of arms between seven and fourteen, but eleven is the most common number. These starfish are often found with arms of varying lengths.
This starfish has ten to fourteen long tapering arms with distinctive large eyespots on the tips. These are each composed of about a hundred complex ocelli; on close examination these structures were found to be virtually devoid of sensory structures and may be non-functional. [3]
L. ciliaris is an orangeish-brown colour and has seven long arms radiating from a small disk. It is a large but fragile sea star, growing to 40 cm (16 in) across, and easily losing its arms (which afterwards regenerate). The arms have parallel sides and taper only near the tip. They have a conspicuous fringe of white spines along the margins.
Among starfish that are able to regenerate their whole body from a single arm, some can do so even from fragments just 1 cm (0.4 in) long. [48] Single arms that regenerate a whole individual are called comet forms.
Luidia maculata is a large starfish, up to 25 cm (10 in) in diameter. There are usually seven or eight (sometimes nine) long, slender, pointed arms and a relatively small central disc. The aboral (upper) surface is flat, with some granulations, the surface covered with flat-topped, table-like structures known as paxillae.
Marthasterias glacialis is a fairly large starfish with a small central disc and five slender, tapering arms. Each arm has three longitudinal rows of conical, whitish spines, usually with purple tips, each surrounded by a wreath of pedicellariae. The background colour is variable and may be brownish or greenish-grey, tinged with yellow or red ...
Luidia clathrata is a large, flattish starfish, sometimes growing to a diameter of 30 cm (12 in). It has a relatively small disc and five slender arms, which are two or three times the diameter of the disc.