Who's your (starfish's) daddy

[DrPeaches]

I noticed a couple of weeks ago my starfish had lost a leg. I found it today.

Ain't it cool!

 

[cateyes]

verrrry neat!!!!! if the leg (or any others in the future), need(s) a new home, i'll be glad to give it one....

 

[neuroslicer]

So, it wasn't such a Pisaster after all!



(i just love marine biology puns)

 

[just dave]

They call them comets when they are like that.

 

[Blindside]

who's the little guy with the big fith leg.



sorry had to be done.

 

[neuroslicer]

Years ago lobstermen in New England would remove sea stars from their lobster traps, cut them up into little pieces, and toss the pieces back into the ocean. And they wondered why there was a population explosion the next year!

 

[crpeck]

WOW ... You are SO lucky! Congratulations!

I had a starfish that was dropping legs to reproduce and ended up self-destructing altogether. Dr. Ron Shimek was still on the board then. He told me that the attempt to reproduce was a good sign but the bad news was that Tamaria stars (which mine was) could rarely reproduce successfully in the aquarium and usually died trying. He was right.

First, the starfish grew a bunch of extra legs and then when he started dropping them he disintigrated. Each of the legs crawled around for a while but none of them made it.

Here's a picture just before things went badly

 

[GreyhoundTrish]

Ok, now there's a new lesson for me for the day. Wow!