Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Sea Star/Starfish Close Ups!

Solaster skin
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
Solaster skin
Image by Alexander Semenov
Crossaster papposus (Pacific Northwest/N. Atlantic) click here to see what the animal looks like
Crossaster skin
Image by Alexander Semenov
Plectaster decanus (Australia) Click here to see what the animal looks like
Starfish close up
Image by Weedy Seadragon
Gomophia gomophia (Okinawa, Japan) click here to see what this animal looks like
Starfish, Gomophia gomophia
Image by Okinawa Nature Photography
Nardoa sp. from the Indo-Pacific
Warty sea star
Image by sbailliez
Echinaster callosus from the Indo-Pacific Warty seastar (Echinaster callosus)
Warty seastar (Echinaster callosus)
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)
Astropecten aranciacus
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!
Starfish macro

From an Australian relative of Mediaster called Nectria ocellata with some enlarged tabulae. It looks like this.
Macro adventures pt 2
Image by ~aquaplane
 Close up surface texture of the Indo-Pacific Archaster typicus. Learn more about it here!
Close up of texture of Common sea star

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