Brittle star

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? Brittle Starfish
"Ophiodea" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Echinodermata Class: Ophiuroidea Gray, 1840

Brittle stars are much like sea stars. They are also invertebrates, they belong to the same family of animals (Echinodermata), and they also have some kind of radial symmetry in their bodies. Usually, they have 5 arms that can grow very long (up to 60cm, on the largest species). Unlike sea stars however, they live much deeper in the ocean. There seem to be brittle stars even at depths below 6000m, what scientists call abysmal depth. Generally, brittle stars live below 500m of depth.

There are about 1.500 different species.

There are two different (closely related) groups, brittle stars (Ophiurida) and basket stars (Eurialida). Basket stars usually live in the deeper parts of the range. Brittle stars (and Basket stars) are either scavengers or detrivores.

A basket star in some kind of plant

A basket star Astrophyton darwinium

A brittle star collecting coral eggs

A brittle star on a sponge