STAR OF THE SEA
Story by Mary Beth Litrico • Artwork by Walter Hunt

Not only in heaven, but
also in the seas are there
stars.
J.H. Linck 1733

After Hurricane Floyd swept by Amelia Island, the beach was lined with sea shells. Prevalent among the windfall were many of one of the loveliest of sea creatures, the starfish.

However, the starfish is not what it seems. It's not even a true fish. Instead, the starfish's true nature lies below its pretty surface, harboring aggressive, voracious and even destructive behaviors.

So as not to confuse the starfish with a true fish, the name "sea star" is preferred. Sea stars have no backbones or gills, like true fish. Nor do they have a head, tail, left or right side. The skeleton is made up of many plates, varying in size, held together by strong flexible tissues. Therefore, the sea star is not stiff but can flex and bend somewhat like chain mail armor.

If you look below the surface, the skeleton usually bears spines or hooks which is why the sea star belongs to the phylum Echinoderma. This word is from two Greek words, echinos, meaning hedgehog and derm, meaning skin. Other echinoderms include sea urchins and sea cucumbers.

 
Pictured above are a pair of common sea stars (orange)
and a live comb sea star (purple).
Illustration by Walter W. Hunt ©2000. Waterwheel Art Studio,
316A Centre Street
________________________________________

The distance from the tip of one arm to the other can measure from less than an inch to four feet, the latter a characteristic of a North Pacific sea star. Sea stars, in fact, range from icy polar waters to balmy tropics. They generally have five arms or multiples of five, up to fifty. The underside of each arm has many tube feet, some with suction disks at the tips. Armed with these disks, the sea star is successful in its voracious quest for food. 

This lovely creature is actually a vicious predator, designed for digestion! The sea star relies on a strong sense of smell to locate prey or carrion. A studied specimen in a tank detected food fish from a distance of almost two feet. Scientists led another specimen around a tank with a piece of dead crab two inches away, like the poor donkey and
the carrot. In the wild, sea stars can use this sense of smell to detect a clam four inches under mud.

How does a seemingly fragile sea star open up a two-shelled mollusk?  Most sea stars, including the common ones found locally, use those suction disks to open up bivalved mollusks, such as oysters and clams. After gripping the shell, it can apply a force of up to 12 pounds, which is sufficient to bend the shell open just enough to slip in its sea star
stomach to start digesting its prey. Perhaps it can't wait for more delicate manners after expending so much energy and patience to get to its meal. A sea star may have to apply pressure for hours or even days until it wears down its victim's muscles.

Another local specimen, known as the star comb or sand star, has a different approach to dining. This genus, Astropecten, has no suckers with which to open up bigger mollusks. Instead, it must eat lots of small prey. Savvy shell collectors know to check out the stomachs of this sea star for clean tiny shells. You may find the sand star burrowed
in a slough at low tide. Look for a kind of foot print with five arms that it leaves behind.

Perhaps these starry knights have voracious appetites to practice their magical feat. Did you know that if a sea star is cut in two, it will become two sea stars? Or if an arm is removed, it will not only regenerate the arm but can grow a whole sea star from the lost
appendage, if the arm includes a piece of the central disk? If you see an asymmetrical sea star, it is probably in the process of regeneration. It can take a year to completely regenerate an arm. Regeneration is also a form of defense. Should a predator threaten, the sea star can drop an arm and hope to escape.

Between the sea stars' hunger and ability to regenerate, they could devastate oyster beds. Oystermen would cut up the sea stars, thinking it would destroy them, but instead doubled the colony. Although fishermen are now wise to the sea stars' magical regeneration ability, this destruction is still a problem today, particularly in the northeastern United States. On the other hand, the sea star can actually benefit oystermen by preying on the oyster drill mollusk, a predator of oysters, and the slipper shell, which competes for food with the oyster. 

Man has noted sea stars for millennia. In the fourth century, B.C., Aristotle wrote accounts of a Mediterranean Sea specimen. As well, sea stars are often pictured in wall decorations and pictures of ancient times.  Although this tough creature is capable of destruction, the sea star is still admired for its mysterious regeneration and celestial
design.