Nancy
May 29th, 2006, 02:43pm
I finally got a decent pic of my tiny brittlestar with black-and-white striped legs. Each leg is about 3/4 inch long - I believe he has 5 of them. He lives in a hole in the liverock and is normally very hard to see (I used a flash and greatly enlarged the photo).
He is a filter feeder and will catches small fragments of flakes. Actually, I now squirt the tiny flakes suspended in salt water by using a turkey baster - that way I make sure he gets food every day.
Nancy
DHyslop
May 29th, 2006, 04:31pm
That's a nice little brittle star. I've got little ones, too, but they're always gray or white without the snazzy stripes.
Dan
chrono_war01
May 29th, 2006, 04:39pm
I've only see one gray one during a diving trip.
Cute things, brittlestars..
Nancy
May 29th, 2006, 05:09pm
I have little white ones too, but they come out and crawl around.
Marvin (that's what I've named him) is special.
It was Colin who advised me to take a large magnifying glass and examine my live rock to discover all the small interesting things living there. If you haven't tried this, you should.
Nancy
Jean
May 29th, 2006, 05:18pm
Hey Nancy,
Marvin is gorgeous! He looks abit like our sand brittle stars.............except ours ar scavengers! and are two shades of brown!
J
corw314
May 29th, 2006, 06:59pm
Nice pics Nancy! He's really cute! Very octo like too!
Carol
aximbigfan
May 30th, 2006, 12:06am
what is a bristal star?
chris
cuttlegirl
May 30th, 2006, 12:21am
A brittle star (sometimes called a serpent star) is related to sea stars and sea urchins (and sea cucumbers and crinoids). They have five very flexible arms connected to a central disk.