#common sunstar

🌙 Moon and Sun and Star ⭐️

Starfish are odd creatures. They have no brain or blood, the ends of their arms have eyes and hundreds of tiny feet, can just pop out it’s stomach to eat and regrow their arms in a pinch. There are also over 2,000 different species in the world, and six of them can be found in UK waters. Let’s work through them alphabetically.

The Bloody Henry Starfish is actually the name for two of the six species. This is because, Henricia Oculata and Henricia Sanguinolenta (to give them their scientific names) are so similar that it’s incredibly difficult to tell the two of them apart.

They can be found in seabeds up to 1m (about 39 inches) deep all around the UK, and occasionally in rock pools. On average they grow to be about 10cm (about 4 inches) wide, but they have been known to grow to twice that size.

Although Bloody Henry Starfish get there name from their purple-red colour, they can also be brown, lavender, or dark red.

Common Starfish are found all around the UK and, being the most common type of Starfish in the North East Atlantic, certainly lives up to its name. They can be found in rock pools and seabeds up to 6m (about 19.6 inches) deep.

Like all Starfish, Common Starfish are predictors, particularly of shellfish like clams and oysters. They eat their prey by prising their shell open with their arms, sticking their stomach inside and using the acid to digest the shellfish into a soup like substance, before reabsorbing their stomach with the soup attached. Unsurprisingly they’re seen a something of a pest on oyster and mussel beds, especially as a plentiful food source will always draw lots of them.

Unlike out stereotypical image of a five armed Starfish, the Common Sunstar can have between eight and sixteen arms; though between ten and twelve are the most common. As you’ve probably worked out, they get their name from the fact they look a bit like the sun. These Starfish can be found all around the costs of the UK, and can be found anywhere from shallow water and rock pools, to the bottom of parts of the ocean up to 50m (about 164 feet) deep.

Common Sunstars aren’t fussy about what they prey upon and will not only eat Sea Cucumbers, Brittle Stars and different species of Starfish, but other Sunstars as well.

Cushion Stars are, in my opinion, the cutest of all the Starfish on this list, being only 5cm (about 2 inches) wide with five short and stubby arms. They’re found all around Great Britain (though they’re less common along the North East Coast) and can be found in both shallow water and rock pools, and in parts of the sea up to 100m (about 328 feet) deep.

Cushion Stars are protandrous hermaphrodites. This means that they are all born as males before transitioning into females if they grow beyond a certain size.

The largest of all the UK Starfish, Spiny Starfish can grow to be up to 70cm (about 27.5 inches) wide. They have green skin and are covered in white spines.

Crossaster papposus (Linnaeus, 1767) "Rose Star" 

Trawled from a depth of 165 meters by R/V Northwest Explorer south of Simidi Islands, Gulf of Alaska on 6/12/2005 during NOAA/NMFS trawl survey.   (radius of rays about 60 mm.)