First, these aren’t STARFISH! Fish swim. There are about 2,000 different species of sea stars in the world’s oceans! About 30 live in our part of the North Pacific. One, the blood star is a very long-legged and graceful sea star, but it’s not that – it’s their color! Painters foment for models like this. These stars are a little less than 4” wide and it’s a good thing – imagine that much red on something bigger. They’re fairly common below the low tide line and commonly on rocks. Five slender arms have two rows of sucker-tipped feet along the undersides – and each star has hundreds of these where sensory neurons are. They can feel or ‘sense’ light, touch (YOUR touch) and chemical changes in the water. Blood stars don’t have other sense organs except a red ‘eye’ at the tip of each arm that can ‘see’ changes between dark and light and possibly movement.

 

Sea stars are carnivores, and some are top dogs in their food web. Blood stars aren’t big enough to challenge bigger stars for dominance, but instead live a milder life of trapping small bits of food with slimy saliva on the undersides of their legs. They then pass this stuff along to the mouth on the underside where the arms come together. As with other sea stars, the blood star can extrude or push its stomach out through its mouth to consume the food. Yes, you read correctly. Breeding customs are also interesting. Females brood their eggs in a little pouch under the mouth by arching that specific arm a bit. After the eggs hatch, the kids escape through skin pores in the arm. They are valuable animals to an ecosystem. With a tough exterior, little threatens blood stars except one thing, people collecting them, because, yes, their color. Don’t!

 

Larry Eifert paints and writes about the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.

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