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Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Guess who?



This is an extreme close-up.  Do you have any guesses about what type of animal it is?

The next photos show zoomed out views that might provide more clues. Hint: The phylum that this animal belongs to is known for being spiny.



Any ideas yet?  

You can see lots of small rounded spines.  Scattered among the spines are tiny claw-like pincers called pedicellariae.  The large white spot is a special structure called a madreporite (or sieve plate).

One more view before I show the entire organism:



Okay, here you go...and the answer is: 


It's a Six-armed Sea Star (Leptasterias sp.)!  It was fun to photograph close-ups of this species in the field.

I mentioned a few different structures above.  To learn more about the pincers or pedicellariae, check out these posts:




And if you're interested in learning about madreporites or sieve plates, you can start with these posts:


 

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