Transcript Sea Stars

Sea Stars
• Class Asteroidea
• Earn their name from their star-like shapes
of their bodies.
• Some are yellow or tan, but others are
bright shades of blue, green, red, orange, or
purple.
• The mouth is in the center disk and faces
downward toward the substrate- called the
oral surface.
• There are nearly 2000 different species of
sea stars that have been discovered.
• Most sea stars take mollusks as their
favorite food, but some eat sea urchins, sea
cucumbers, and other sea stars.
• Their water-vascular system serves in
locomotion.
• They are never found in fresh water or on
land.
• Sea Stars are strictly bottom animals.
• At the end of each arm, a star has one or
more tube-feet.
• A sea star’s arms are actually part of it’s
body rather than appendages.
• Most cannot move very quickly.
• The Pacific Northwest is home to more than
70 species found nowhere else in the world.
• Some live in mud, sand, and silt land on
their bodies.
• Some live in sea grass in the Gulf of
Mexico, Florida Keys and Carribean Sea.
• In the Florida Keys sea stars are collected
and dried to be sold as souvenirs.
• Their size is less than 1/2 an inch in
diameter to more than 3 feet across.
• The largest sea star of the Atlantic Coast of
America is Oreaster Reticulus of Florida.
Sources
• The Lower Animals Living Vertebrates of
the World. By; Ralph Buschsbaum and
Lones J. Mine. Pgs.189,254,276,280
• BY: VERONICA FOLEY PERIOD 2