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Family: Gorgonocephalidae
Basket Star
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Bocas Species Database Habitat: Reef habitats deeper than the reef flat and rocky substrates; associated with various species of gorgonians, stony corals, fire corals, and sponges. Distribution: North Carolina to the Florida keys and the Gulf of Mexico. Caribbean. Natural History Notes: During the day, large basket stars hide in crevices, often with other invertebrates. At dusk, they ascend to an elevated perch, and at dawn they descend back to their crevice. Small individuals cling to gorgonians. A. muricatum is a nocturnal suspension feeder that uses coiled terminal arm branches to capture planktonic prey. An adult individual is capable of capturing small fish, but the vast majority of its diet consists of tiny copepods. Large basket stars are rarely preyed upon, and it is unclear whether their nocturnal feeding habits are driven by cyclic prey availability or defensive adaptation. Individuals are estimated to live over 7 years and can occupy the same feeding perch for up to 2 years. Sexually mature females are ripe year round and produce eggs up to 0.44 mm in diameter. A number of organisms are associated with the basket star including: shrimps, copepods, amphipods, isopods, mollusks, ophiuroids, and an internal myzostome worm. Depth: 2-70 m Characteristics: Individuals have a disk up to 70mm in diameter with meshlike, branching arms of up to 1m radiating outward. Each of the five arms gives rise to two thick, stubby locomotory branches and two long, slender feeding branches. Branching is extraordinarily comlplex: specimens reportedly have 35 series of arm bifurcations, more than 81,000 arm joints and over 10,000 terminal arm branches. Juveniles with relatively few arm branches are pink. Small basket stars have banded arms and have yellow and white tubercles set in reddish and brown regions on the disk. Large individuals are solid black, brown, light chocolate brown, yellowish brown, bright orange-yellow, tan, gray, green, or dirty white. |