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Brittle stars, serpent stars, or ophiuroids (from Latin ophiurus 'brittle star'; from Ancient Greek ὄφις (óphis) 'serpent' and οὐρά (ourá) 'tail'; referring to the serpent-like arms of the brittle star) are echinoderms in the class Ophiuroidea, closely related to starfish. They crawl across the sea floor using their flexible arms ...
Starfish, such as the ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) and the reef sea star (Stichaster australis), have become widely known as examples of the keystone species concept in ecology. The tropical crown-of-thorns starfish ( Acanthaster planci ) is a voracious predator of coral throughout the Indo-Pacific region, and the Northern Pacific ...
Amphiuridae (commonly called long-armed burrowing brittle stars [2] or burrowing brittle stars) are a large family of brittle stars of the suborder Gnathophiurina.Some species are used to study echinoderm development (e.g. Amphipholis kochii [3] and Amphioplus abditus [4]) and bioluminescence (the dwarf brittle star, Amphipholis squamata [5] [6]).
Ophiothrix suensoni, Suenson's brittle star or the sponge brittle star, is a species of marine invertebrate in the order Ophiurida. It is found in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. It is included in the subgenus Acanthophiothrix making its full scientific name Ophiothrix (Acanthophiothrix) suensoni. [1]
This brittle star has a circum-boreal distribution. In the northern Atlantic Ocean it is common around Iceland, Spitzbergen and Norway southwards to the North Sea.On the eastern coast of North America its range extends from Greenland southwards to Long Island, and in the Pacific Ocean, its range stretches from Japan and the Bering Sea southwards to California. [3]
Amphiodia occidentalis, the long-armed brittle star, is a species of brittle star belonging to the family Amphiuridae. It is found in the Eastern Pacific coast from Alaska to USA, [2] often on the seafloor within intertidal and subtidal zones. Within these areas, it is often found buried a few centimeters under the sand with 2 or 3 arms ...
Numerous individuals of these two species sometimes form dense communities with hundreds of brittle stars per square metre. These beds may extend several hundred square metres over sandy and pebbly sediment on the sea floor and contain millions of brittle stars. [9] These can be either O. nigra or O. fragilis, or a mixed community of the two.
The Asterozoa are a subphylum in the phylum Echinodermata, within the Eleutherozoa.Characteristics include a star-shaped body and radially divergent axes of symmetry. The subphylum includes the classes Asteroidea (the starfish or sea stars), Ophiuroidea (the brittle stars and basket stars), Somasteroidea (early asterozoans from which the other classes most likely evolved), and Stenuroidea ...