#Oregon tidal pools skin
When you touch a Sunflower Star under water, the skin feels like wet fleece.very soft and mushy. They have voracious appetites, and no intertidal animal is safe when the Sunflower Star is nearby! In the photo below, please note the white hair-like tube feet extending from the stars' upraised arms, with which it captures its prey. Sunflower Stars move very fast compared to other sea stars and can move as fast as 5 feet a minute. The most prevalent color of Sunflower Stars on the southern Oregon coast is a reddish-purple, like the one pictured below. The Sunflower Star, like many other species of sea stars, comes in a spectrum of colors including yellow, orange, gray, blue and purple. If you rested the top of your forearm on the upper surface of most sea stars ( not the Bat Star, Leather Star or Blood Star), the pedicellariae would "pinch" the hair on your arm and you would definitely feel a pulling when you removed your arm.
#Oregon tidal pools free
Sunflower Stars have pedicellariae, tiny pincers that keep the skin free of parasites. The Sunflower Star below is appoximately 21" across and has 19 arms. They can grow to 40" across, and have up to 23 arms.
The Sunflower Star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) is the largest sea star in the world. In controlled experiments, biologists have been able to regenerate five complete, new sea stars from the five severed arms of one Ochre Star.
Sea Stars have the ability to regenerate a new arm(s) when they lose one or more to predators or mishap. When the star is ready to move about or finished consuming its' prey, the second gland secretes a substance that dissolves the "glue." One gland secretes a "glue" allowing the star to adhere to a rock indefinitly, or pry apart prey. In the photo below, a few tube feet are visible (the fine white threads extending from star's far-right arm) attached to the shell of a mussel, the Ochre Star's favorite prey.īiologists have recently discovered a pair of "duo-glands" at the tip of each Ochre Star tube foot. Stars use these tube feet for locomotion and to capture prey. The most common sea star (they aren't called starfish anymore!) on the southern Oregon coast is the Ochre Star (Pisaster ochraceus), which can be spotted from a distance due to their bright colors, relatively large size, and the fact they live near the low-tide line on exposed rocky shores.Īll sea stars have hundreds of tube feet located in two rows on the underside of each arm.
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