Bizarre sea star

Last year while diving on a top critter site in Alor I came across a few of these very bizarre sea stars. I showed Pat Colin from Palau who reckons he has only seen something similar from a submarine at depths way beyond recreational diving depths. I was wondering if anyone has seen anything like this before, is it somehting new?

I am on my way back to Alor very soon and will find out if they are still there?

That is really neat. Was it fleshy? Looks like it.

Graham - I've never seen anything like this either so I passed your image along to Gordon Hendler, our echinoderm curator. He gave me a tentative family name but not much else: " It looks to me like a member of the Labidiasteridae. If the diver can provide a specimen or specimens, I can provide an identification. The "mushrooms" are batteries of pedicellariae that surround the spines."

Wow, Worm Girl does it again, this is ACE! I love this site, only problem is I don't have acces to it on the boats I go out on!

In all honesty I didn't poke it or anything, I photographed it coz I knew I had never seen anything like it.

For sure I'll be looking for them again...

What do you actually need in the way of specimens and can you advise me on what to keep it in, if I do find them again?

Wow, Worm Girl does it again, this is ACE! I love this site, only problem is I don't have acces to it on the boats I go out on!

 

In all honesty I didn't poke it or anything, I photographed it coz I knew I had never seen anything like it.

 

For sure I'll be looking for them again...

 

What do you actually need in the way of specimens and can you advise me on what to keep it in, if I do find them again?

It helps to work at a museum with a good marine invert department, that's for sure.

Getting a specimen would be great provided collecting is legal in the area. I'll send you Gordon's email via PM so you can discuss it directly with him. It would be doubly cool if the star had some nifty commensal polychaetes living on it!