What does a brittle star look like?

brittle star, also called serpent star, any of the 2,100 living species of marine invertebrates constituting the subclass Ophiuroidea (phylum Echinodermata). Their long, thin arms—usually five and often forked and spiny—are distinctly set off from the small disk-shaped body.

Does a brittle star have a skeleton?

Instead of crawling on hundreds of tube feet like starfish, brittle stars move fairly rapidly by wriggling their arms. These agile arms are supported by an internal skeleton of calcium carbonate plates that superficially look like vertebrae, and that are in fact called vertebral ossicles.

What are some characteristics of brittle stars?

Overview and description. Brittle stars are echinoderms, which are marine invertebrates comprising the phylum Echinodermata and generally characterized by a hard, internal calcite skeleton, a water-vascular system, adhesive “tube feet,” and five-rayed radial symmetry at some point in their lives.

What type of skeleton do brittle stars have?

Brittle stars have a skeleton made of calcium carbonate, found as the mineral calcite which forms small bone-like structures. These “bones” are fused together to form an armour-like shell. In Brittle stars all the five arms (with tbe feet) are attached to the central disc which contains all the body organs.

Do brittle stars have a brain?

Brittle stars, with five radiating arms extending from a central disk, are related to starfish (also called sea stars), sea cucumbers, sea urchins and others in a group of marine invertebrates called echinoderms. They have a nervous system but no brain.

Do brittle stars have eyes?

But now Sumner-Rooney’s team has come up with a possible answer: that red coloration might help the brittle stars sort of see, even though they have no eyes. In bright daylight, their redness filters the light reaching photoreceptors along their arms. Brittle stars like hiding in shady parts of the reef.

Will brittle stars eat clams?

Well-Known Member. Most starfish do not eat clams. Some do and are predatory, others do not and are scavengers or detritivores. The starfish in question are small, probably micro brittle stars or asterina stars which are scavengers and are not clam predators.

Do brittle starfish have eyes?

Its entire body is indeed an eye. But the image formed might be extremely strange to us. A brittle star is not a ball, like a sea urchin. It is five unruly arms attached to a conciliating core.

What do brittle stars eat?

Being omnivores (mainly detritivores), a brittle star diet is composed of decaying plant matter, plankton, krill, and small fish. Serpent stars use their arms to get a good hold of their food before pushing their stomachs through their mouths to consume their prey.