Starfish

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Starfish
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Physical Description

• Starfish are hard-skinned animals which have
  spines that help to protect them.
• They dont have bones and they are NOT fish, they
  are Echinoderms spiny-skinned invertebrates
  that live on the ocean floor.
• Other echinoderms are the sea cucumbers and the
  sea urchin.

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Feeding

• Starfish are carnivores, they eat clams, oysters,
  coral and mussels.
• It grasps the tightly closed shell of the oyster
  with the tube-feet on its arms and tugs and pulls
  until it has opened a small crack in the shell.
  Then it sticks its stomach out through its mouth
  and gets it into its preys shell. The soft body
  of the mollusc is digested and the starfish then
  pulls its stomach back to its body.
• While it is eating it often gives off a special
  poison that drives away the other starfish so
  that they dont take its food

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Locomotion and Interesting Facts

• Starfish move very slowly along the sea floor
  using hundreds of tiny tube-feet, that are like
  little tubes with a circle at the end, that help
  it to walk and climb if a wave moves the
  starfish it will hold onto a rock with its tube
  feet.
• If a starfish loses one arm it will grow again
  easily.

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Starfishs Brain

• Starfish do not have true brains. They have a
  cluster of nerves called ganglia that form a ring
  in the centre of the starfish.
• With the exception of eye spots in the tip of
  each arm there are no specialised sense organs
  (such as eyes or ears). These eyespots sense
  light and smell.