Some Excellent Japanese Echinoderms! Textures and Closeups!

I've been in Japan for the last 6 weeks studying Japanese sea stars at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tsukuba, Japan!

As this is my last week at the museum I thought I would share some neat pics of some of the interesting echinoderms that I've encountered over the last few weeks....

Trophodiscus almus. This is an unusual species, which brood baby sea stars on its top surface! You see those weird round to star shaped white spots on the surface? Those are the juveniles which live on the surface among the "forest" of spines present..

 A close up....  I've featured this species before as seen in Japan, courtesy of my colleague Yoichi Kogure!!   The Japanese name for this species is komochi-momiji, aka the "starfish with babies"

Close up of the stalked crinoid Saracrinus nobilis!  This closeup shows us the arrangement of plates on the various arms and how they fuse together to form the various skeletal architecture used to identify them and to compose the arm structure..

A picture of the stalk.. note the angles!!  Cool!

A slightly different crinoid.. a feather star. (an unstalked vs. the stalked species above).but a closeup of the arms and how they articulate and form different fused pieces...

Here's the spines of a beautiful species, Coelopleurus maculata! I've covered Coelopleurus briefly before. Their tests are naturally rich and colorful!!   

   

Again, to emphasize: The spine colors are NATURAL. nothing added!!

Here's what I believe to be Prionocidaris baculosa.. also with some unusual spine patterns...

An unidentified white cidaroid urchin with some wonderful spination...

an interesting tropical basket star!

and of course, OGMASTER!