For decades, scientists have sought to understand how the present-day starfish came to be. Newly analyzed fossils should help, as they represent a transitional step between the starfish and the family ...

Part 1: Comparative biology and ecology. Phylogeny of the asteroidea / Andrew S. Gale ; The asteroid arm / John M. Lawrence ; Functional biology of asteroid tube feet / Elise Hennebert, Michel Jangoux ...

Starfish embryos sprout appendages very early on in development, and the embryos can spin through water by moving those appendages. Researchers have now found that when a bunch of starfish embryos are ...

Starfish are beautiful organisms, but if you think about it a little deeper, they’re also really strange. As echinoderms, they’re relatives of sea cucumbers and urchins, meaning at one point they ...

Science Guide & Tutor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge A chance discovery of a beautifully preserved fossil in the desert landscape of Morocco has solved one of the great mysteries of ...

Photograph of a specimen of the common European starfish Asterias rubens with a regenerating arm. Starfish shed arms (autotomy) when attacked by predators and then regenerate a new arm to replace the ...

Researchers have identified the hormone that triggers a starfish to shed its limbs to survive predators, describing it as being similar to the one controlling appetite in humans. The research team at ...

For many creatures, having a limb caught in a predator’s mouth is usually a death sentence. Not starfish, though—they can detach the limb and leave the predator something to chew on while they crawl ...