Sea Star/Starfish Close Ups!

Image by Alexander Semenov

Bonjour to everyone! At the moment I am continuing my research in Paris at the Museum national d'Historie naturelle! Here are a bunch of my prior posts about studying at this incredible place!

I'll be blogging more on this shortly but in the meantime, here are some neat close ups of various starfish species!

Solaster endeca (Pacific Northwest/N. Atlantic) click here to see what the animal looks like

Image by Alexander Semenov

Crossaster papposus (Pacific Northwest/N. Atlantic) click here to see what the animal looks like

Image by Alexander Semenov

Plectaster decanus (Australia) Click here to see what the animal looks like

Image by Weedy Seadragon

Gomophia gomophia (Okinawa, Japan) click here to see what this animal looks like

Image by Okinawa Nature Photography

Nardoa sp. from the Indo-Pacific

Image by sbailliez

Echinaster callosus from the Indo-Pacific 

Images by Optical Allusion

The sand star Astropecten aranaciacus (temperate Europe, Mediterranean) click here to see it!
Note the star-shaped pillars are called paxillae. In theory they protect the papulae (aka the gills) from burial)

Image by fabbricmare

From Mediaster aequalis (west coast of N. America) a similar bunch of structures called tabula or tabular plates.. Click here to see it!

From an Australian relative of Mediaster called Nectria ocellata with some enlarged tabulae. It looks like this.

Image by ~aquaplane

 Close up surface texture of the Indo-Pacific Archaster typicus. Learn more about it here!