File:Astropecten sp. starfish (Cayo Costa Island, Florida, USA) 2 (24199888942).jpg

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Original file(1,583 × 916 pixels, file size: 924 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Captions

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Summary[edit]

Description

Astropecten sp. starfish in Florida, USA (January 2016).

Starfish are vagrant, benthic, mostly predatory echinoderms. They have a multielement skeleton composed of numerous, small, calcitic plates. Most starfish are pentaradial (they have 5 arms), but some species have 6 or more arms. Many starfish are predators, although some can deposit feed. Predatory starfish include forms that consume prey, usually bivalves, by everting their stomachs through their mouths (= centrally located on the underside) and digest food externally.

About 150 species of Astropecten are known from modern oceans. The oldest fossils of Astropecten sensu stricto are Eocene. Unlike many starfish, Astropecten does not engage in stomach eversion behavior. Instead, Astropecten consumes its prey whole and has internal digestion.

The off-center, whitish-colored structure in the central disc area of the starfish shown above is the madreporite, which draws in or expels water from the organism's water vascular system.

Classification: Animalia, Echinodermata, Asteroidea, Paxillosida, Astropectinidae

Locality: marine beach at the southern tip of Cayo Costa Island, Gulf of Mexico coast of southwestern Florida, USA (vicinity of 26° 36' 48.74" North latitude, 82° 13' 19.91" West longitude)


Astropecten-specific info. from:

Lawrence (2013) - Starfish, Biology and Ecology of the Asteroidea. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press. 288 pp.


More info. at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish and

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astropecten
Date
Source Astropecten sp. starfish (Cayo Costa Island, Florida, USA) 2
Author James St. John

Licensing[edit]

w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
This image was originally posted to Flickr by James St. John at https://flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/24199888942. It was reviewed on 14 August 2016 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

14 August 2016

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current17:31, 14 August 2016Thumbnail for version as of 17:31, 14 August 20161,583 × 916 (924 KB)Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr via Flickr2Commons

There are no pages that use this file.

Metadata