Feather star’s dinner

by   Profile Thomas Van Puymbroeck   When 19th October 2020
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Feather stars live in both shallow water and the depths of the ocean. Their scientific name, crinoid, comes from the Greek words for ‘lily’ (krinon) and ‘form’ (eidos), and it’s not hard to see why their first observer named them such. Graceful, flowing arms flow in the water column, grabbing bits of plankton passing by.


Feather stars consume small food particles floating around the ocean. With feather arms and tubular feet, they are able to trap any edibles using a sticky mucus that feeds into the mouth. Because feather stars do not have an official stomach, consumables cycle through their body in waves while still providing nutrition.


Did you know they have infinite arms? That’s right, feather stars can regenerate their arms at less than a millimeter per day!


Fish are the biggest enemy of feather stars, but other small animals that live on feather stars, like shrimp, will occasionally snack on their host too. Most of them don’t even go out for food and just snack on the faeces of the feather star. Sound good? 


Equipment used on my dive: Essence Liquidskin maskRebel Dry snorkelPower Plana finsFlexa bootsThermo Guard undersuit and Reef wetsuit.

Written by
Profile Thomas Van Puymbroeck
Date
When 19th October 2020
Share
Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterPin on Pinterest
COMMENTS
The post has no comments.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Also by Thomas Van Puymbroeck