Did you know that this species of sea stars are more unique than other species? The Blue Sea Star is also known as the Cornet Sea Star. This beautiful star has many interesting facts about it. The Blue Sea Star can gets up to 12 inches long. Color is a big characteristic for the Blue Sea Star; it’s what makes this star beautiful. Its color is Bright Blue with sometimes red or purplish spots all over it. It has five legs and it also has elongated arms and tubular feet. It is also firm in texture and it is slightly tubular. The Blue Sea Star is nocturnal, that means they sleep during the day and at night is when they go out to eat or pray on other organisms. This organism is found in the sunny areas of the reef and reef fringe. They are also found in areas where there is wave action. Blue Sea Stars are tropical species, they live throughout the Indo-Pacific Region and around the Northern part of Australia. They are common on the Great Barrier Reefs or in low tide at small coral reef pools.

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Its habit is the coral reefs, sea grass beds and on sand under the sea. They do well in there habitat because the sea star is intolerant of sudden oxygen levels, salinity and the pH of the water, so where they live all of theses issues are resolved, unless something changes it by messing with there habitat. The population of the sea star is declined do to harvesting by the industry and tourists. These people have been taking them out of their habitats to sell. The population of the Blue Sea Stars or any other can be extinct in a couple of years if the people keep taking them away from there habitat. But as long as the people leave them alone and the sea stars keep reproducing more and more sea stars than everything will be fine. These organisms reproduce asexually and sexually.

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The Diet of this sea star is Omnivore and a scavenger. These scavengers are constantly foraging for food. The sea stars mostly feed on algae. Sometime they spew out there stomach lining, in order to access hard to reach food, before sucking them back in to digest. Predators of the Blue Sea Star are all invertebrates. It’s predators are puffer fishes, harlequin shrimp and sea anemones. When you find a Blue Sea Star you might also find a parasitic snail, Thyca crystalline which is a parasitic gastropod sucking or feeding on it.

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There are many interesting facts about the Blue Sea Star. The most common place you are going to find the Blue Sea Star is in the Great Barrier Reefs, but today there is only one Great Barrier Reef and that one has started to die, so the sea stars have been living in other places. The life span of a sea star can be up to 10 years. There are many behaviors for the Blue sea star, some are that it is peaceful, but really defensive at the same time. The Origin of the Blue Sea Star is Bali. Did you know that if you chop off a leg of a sea star, the sea star is most likely to grow a new leg or the leg with grow into a whole other sea star. A new sea star can form from almost any part of a sea star that can break off. Another important fact is that you are not supposed to call a sea star a starfish because they have proven that a sea star is not really a fish, so you should always say that it is a sea star. As you can see Blue Sea Stars or any other types of sea stars are very interesting and unique. There are many things that people haven’t known about the Blue Sea Star, nut now they have a source to go and find more information about the Blue Sea Star. This sea star is so beautiful and amazing when you actually see in it in a picture or in person. Now you know why this species is the most unique out of all species.

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Author: Carmel P.

Published: 02/2008

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Sources:

"Blue Seastar (Linckia Laevigata)." Marine Fish Picture Gallery. 2008. 6 Feb. 2008 .

"Blue Starfish." Peteducation. 2008. 6 Feb. 2008 .

"Fiji Faithful-Linckia Laevigata." Goggling Fiji. 2008. 24 Jan. 2008 .

"Linckia Laevigata." Julian Rocks. 2008. 24 Jan. 2008 .

"Linckia Laevigata." Wikipedia. 31 Jan. 2008. 6 Feb. 2008 .

Tuason, Scott, ed. "Verde Reef Including Starfish." Image Quest Marine. 2001. 6 Feb. 2008

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Photo Credit: Richard Ling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Linckia.jpg