Brittle star arms

[MikeDeL]

I had part of an arm on my brittle star come off. It was sitting there in the sand sqirmming around. I thought it was the power heads moving it around, but it wasnt. I picked it up and it started coiling and sqirmming around in my hand. What causes this? Arm Brittle Stars arms like snakes, and keep twitching after they have been removed?


Mike

[CD]

Hmmm...well, I looked this up in my invert book. Says they will drop an arm when attacked. Also says that if part of the oral disc comes away with the appendage, that it could possibly grow into another star...also, the missing appendage on the original star should regrow.
Don't know if that helps any, but I will keep looking....

Wendy

[DeAngelove]

Yep... I've seen this happen before. Not always, but it does happen enough to be noted in the invert books like the one Wendy is talking about above.

Seems to be a pretty common thing amongest Echinoderms in general... which includes stars.

HTH :)

DAB

[MikeDeL]

OK so this is kinda creepy. I left the arm in there just to see what would happen. It has moving around slowly over the last week, but just now I was watching it CRAWL around. It crawled across the sand, into and then back out of a shell, and is now wrapping itself around the shell. :huh Should I seek help (mental help)?

[bprewit]

Hey I had a star that was eaten by something in my tank, never found out what it was but all 5 of its arms cralwed around and lived somehow for over 2 weeks! Was weird looking to see them crawl aimlessly across the sand but they did. They never grew into another star though unfortunatly. It was cool to watch though!

[MikeDeL]

Its like Shaun of the Dead...LOL