Some Cool Chilean (Antarctic) Echinoderm Time Lapse Videos!

This week I am doing some museum/starfish related travel.

So that means Videos!

Antarctic Time Lapse= GO!

Some sea urchins...

the basket star Gorgonocephalus chilensis (the good bits star about halfway through..)

more urchins..

Chilean bottom critters (invertebrates mostly)

And this one is always a classic!

Sunflower Starfish Video Day! aka Pycnopodia Power!

(image courtesy of Allison Gong!)

Its been awhile since I've had a chance to share some cool starfish videos and there's some awesome new sunflower star video on YouTube!

1. The "mound" of moving Pycnopodia helianthoides ! A video from the Vancouver Aquarium. Research diver Donna Gibbs was out and observed this spectacular spectacle. I dont' think I've ever seen a huge aggregate of sunflower stars like this before! Literally climbing over each other in high densities. The Vancouver Aquarium folks speculate on temperature or red tides as the cause..I wonder if it might be some kind of odd reproductive behavior. Anyway...its weird and spectacular!


2. Sunflower stars battlin it out! Nuff said!


3. Sunflower star TIME LAPSE turn over. If you don't love watching starfish time lapse-then you have become TIRED OF LIFE!!!


4. Sunflower Stars VERSUS the SCALLOPS!! Watch the Godzilla of starfish terrorize a bunch of hapless bivalves! ha! Silly Scallops!! Watch them RUN!


5. Finally... there's always THIS favorite... Sunflower star clears out the hapless brittle stars and sand dollars around it! THAT is who's boss! All to a hip soundtrack of Vivaldi's Four Seasons!

WHEN STARFISH ATTACK!!!! TIME LAPSE VIDEO DAY!!!!

First...Go HERE and see this AWESOME video of Antarctic Starfish [Odontaster validus (99% of the ones in the pic) and some Lysasterias (the big white one) thrown in for good measure] feeding on the dead carcass of a dead seal pup!! Ha! take that mammals! And there's some big Antarctic nemertine worms (probably Parborlasia corrugatus) thrown in for good measure!!

What??? You want MORE time lapse???! Here's some Canadian Atlantic species thrown in for good measure! Looks like primarily Leptasterias polaris (big 6 rayed beast) and Solaster endeca (8-12 armed one with stripes)And to the music of Benny Hill no less!



And yet, EVEN MORE Time Lapse video?? here ya'go! A tiny aquarium asterinid extending its stomach out onto the glass to feed!



Finally, here's some Patiria miniata gliding over the bottom of the Pacific!