Always something new

The tiny six-armed starfish was eating barnacles at the front of the aquarium, so I thought I could get a clear photo of all his equipment; gills and biting pedicellaria and questing tube feet and all. I was hoping to see how they compared to the tool chest of a mottled star.

Star and barnacles. He is about 1/2 inch eye to eye.

The mottled star's spines form definite lines along the centre of his arms. Like so:

Mottled star, out of the water, looking at me. (The eyes are those two red spots on the tips of the arms.)

Six's spines seem to be scattered almost randomly. They are white on the pale outer arms, and orange on the central star pattern. The gills are fat, translucent posts clustered mainly in the centre, although some of the shorter ones could possibly be pedicellaria; their tips are split, like those of the mottled star, but they're much bigger in proportion to the spines.

I couldn't see the ocelli (eyes), nor the tube feet.

But there was a surprise; in these photos, the madreporite, the intake valve on one side of the central medallion, turned out to have a circular fan-like structure in the opening, like the intake on the bottom of my computer.

The madreporite, slightly highlighted.

Six, two hermits, and barnacles. These are small barnacles; the hermits are even smaller.

I wanted a better look, so I removed the barnacled shell from the tank, with Six along for the ride. Immediately, all his varied skin ornaments went flat and inert. I'll have to try another tactic.

More sixes!

Strange: up until a month ago, I had never seen a six-armed starfish. And this last trip to the low tide mark, they were everywhere. Almost all the clamshells I picked up held at least one, and I even found a small one floating, holding onto fine algae hairs.

Baby star, belly-up

Dark brown star. They all seem to like the hinge end of the clamshells.

Two-toned six-armed star.

Pale brown, dark brown, and grey patterns.

I also found many mottled stars, all young. And none, not even one of our usual orange or purple stars, which were the ones most severely hit by the sea star wasting syndrome. Their loss may have been the opportunity for these less common stars to expand their territory.

Six!

Among the hitchhikers on my handful of eelgrass, I found half a dozen infant stars*, no bigger than a pinhead, and still colourless. I photographed them on the orange lid of the pill bottle I take to the beach.

Miniature crawling snowflakes?

It wasn't until I was saving the photo that I realized what was different about them; instead of the 5 arms that most of our starfish have, these babies have six.

Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest lists four six-rayed starfish: Drab, Colourful, Rusty, and Polar six-armed stars. I have no idea which these are; they're too small to identify.

I dropped them in the tank, not really expecting them to survive. That was a week ago; this evening, one was climbing the wall.

*"Infant stars" sounds too formal for a wandering pinhead. I wonder; should I call them starlets? Or starlings?