Sea stars, sea cucumbers and other echinoderms
THE (NEARLY IMMORTAL) LIVES OF SEA URCHINS IS THE FOCUS of this terrific video from the terrific folks at PBS’s Deep Look. Like most marine denizens, they endure long – and perilous – journeys as tiny larvae before settling into on some suitable substrate for a life eating algae. Once they transform into adults, they’re pretty much invulnerable, says Deep Look, with life expectancy as long at 200 years. The transformation process is amazing.
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I’M NOT SURE WHETHER THIS IS FASCINATING OR CREEPY, but it does give us an idea of how sea stars and other echinoderms move along on little, hydraulically-operated tube feet. Apparently the poor guy got stranded on the sand as the tide went out. The videographer, Zeb Hallock, notes that after shooting the video, he put it and other sea stars back in the water.
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TO MOST DIVERS, SEA CUCUMBERS WOULD SEEM LIKE THE INACTION FIGURES of the oceans. Mainly, they come off as inert, sausage-shaped lumps lying randomly on the sandy bottom and perhaps the least interesting objects on the reef. It’s time for real sea cucumber facts. Actually, some of them have real Captain Echinoderm moves in them. For one thing, they’re nocturnal so what you see in the daytime isn’t what you’d get at night, when they
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THE MARKINGS OF THE FISHES AT LEFT AND LOWER RIGHT suggest members of the genus Canthigaster, sharp-nosed puffers often known as toby’s that are found in the Indo-Pacific. But the specific designs and colors are sufficiently different from the familiar black saddled toby (Canthigaster valentini) to suggest they’re not described in any of the references I have access to. CANTHIGASTER POSEIDONSWEBUS But there are a lot of fishes in the sea, so to speak, and
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BLOOD STARS (HENRICIA SANGUINOLENTA) ARE OFTEN DARK RED, SMALL AND TALKATIVE – well, this one looked like he ought to be, anyway. I always thought that if Pixar made a film featuring this blood star, it should be played by Billy Crystal. I digress. They’re found from the far northern Atlantic to as far south as Cape Hatteras. The book says they’re as big as four inches across. All those I’ve seen, in New England, are
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