Starfish problem in the news

[itZme]

Thought someone else might like to read about this problem. I was just looking up starfish info and found this interesting and sad.

STARFISH STORY

-- Kevin

 

[jrsoprano]

interesting...............

 

[Tbohinc]

Thanks for the info

 

[Norm R]

Sad. I have seen these purple sea stars up in that area. They are beautiful and very large.

 

[scottfarcuz]

The abundance of marine parasites has always amazed me.

A sea star sperm eating protozoan. Thats just plain odd...

These holotrich ciliates invade the host gonad causing atrophy of the gonad and castration in heavily infected sea stars. Infection is most prevalent in males and can reduce the proportion of males in a population. The reproductive potential in affected populations is decreased due to reduced male gamete production and the size structure of the population is altered. In addition, infections of O. stellarum were associated with a failure of coelomocytes to aggregate (clump) in A. forbesi (Childs 1970, Taylor and Bang 1978) and A. vulgaris (Bang 1982).

Doesn't sound like fun at all