Common basket star, northern basket star, Gorgon’s head sea star
At the Aquarium
Rocky Coast
Appearance
This basket star has 5 heavily branched arms, and its central disc is covered in scales and has scattered granules. The body can be a variety of colors including white, maroon, cinnamon, pink, or even bright orange-red, often with the disc and arms sporting a different color.
Habitat
Found subtidally from 30-6,200 feet deep, usually on rock bottoms with a strong current, including sea mounts or on sandy or muddy bottoms where it may be attached to boulders, sea fans, or sea pens
Diet
Suspension feeders; zooplankton up to 1.2 inches in size, including crustaceans and fish larvae
Life History
Basket stars reproduce by broadcast spawning from June to November. The tiny young find their way to red soft coral, where they will live inside the polyps at a radial disc size of 0.04 inches across. It is not known how they get inside the polyp but it is possible that the larva is ingested by the coral. They might be feeding on the soft coral’s eggs, which are brooded inside the parent coral. They will eventually move to the surface of the coral for variable time. They leave the soft coral but move to an adult basket star when their central disk is about 2 inches in diameter. On adult basket stars, the juvenile takes food that the adult captured until their own arms are more developed.
This large basket star can reach a central disc diameter of 5.5 inches and ,with all arms extended, can reach a total diameter of 4 feet. They may live up to 35 years.
This basket star feeds by facing the current with its arms (rays) extended, and zooplankton is caught on microscopic hooks on its rays. They then secrete paralyzing mucus from their tube feet and can bring the arm to the mouth on the underside of the central disc.
When threatened, a basket star can wrap its arms around its body to form a tight ball. Like sea stars, basket stars are able to grow back limbs broken off or eaten by a predator.
Citations & Other Resources
Hainey, MacKenna AH. Behavior and Functional Morphology of Respiration in the Basket Star, Gorgonocephalus eucnemis and Two Brittle Stars in the Genus Ophiothrix. MS thesis. University of Oregon, 2018.
Herrero-Pérezrul, MA Dinorah, et al. inchesNew record of the basket star Gorgonocephalus eucnemis (Ophiuroidea: Gorgonocephalidae) at the Pacific coast of Mexico.inches Marine Biodiversity Records 7 (2014): e33.
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