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Contents 1 Assessment 2 Sea star vs starfish 3 Geological history 4 Is ITIS authoritative? 4.1 Sunstars? 4.2 Scientific name? 4.3 Images 4.4 the sea stars and the fishers 4.5 info for the taking 5 Help wanted to identify image 6 Preditors? 7 Lifespan?

[edit] Assessment

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[edit] Sea star vs starfish

This page was earlier at sea star, and claimed that starfish was an incorrect synonym. These things aren't fish, but that doesn't make the term incorrect as such - compare with jellyfish. Also, the terms differ slightly in scope - starfish is sometimes used to include brittle stars, and sea star isn't - but I guess this difference isn't quite so common as I thought. I think starfish is the more common term, so I've moved the page here, but even if it isn't, it shouldn't be called wrong.

Well if you go to an aquarium they're careful to call them seastars" and "jellies". We should at the very least note in the article that they're not fish. -- Loren

Ta-da! :) -- Oliver P. 00:32 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

To those who defend the name seastar and protest, "but they aren't fish!": recall that neither are they stars. We are complicit in misnomer.

Along with this, jellyfish are not only not fish, but they are not jelly either. Also, a koala bear isn't a bear.

They aren't astronomical stars, but they are geometric stars.

Marine biologists consider "starfish" a deprecated name. Of course, it is a common name, and therefore should *be in wikipedia, but redirected to "sea star", not the other way around. Using "sea star" consistently in the article would also be good. You can argue whether the deprecation is silly, but it is real. Let's make the official name "sea star" (assuming we don't want Asteroidea). It makes the biologists happier, and doesn't upset the average person too much. user:nereocystis 22 Nov, 2004.

"fish" used to refer to many creatures which live in the water, which is probably the source for starfish. This use of "fish" is uncommon today, and is another argument for preferring "sea star" over "starfish". From 1913 Webster:

A name loosely applied in popular usage to many animals of diverse characteristics, living in the water. "Starfish" may be more common then "sea star" and "seastar", according to a google search, but "sea star" should be used.

It seems that the comments on this page prefer "sea star". Would anyone seriously object to making this the standard? user:nereocystis 3 Dec 2004.

I expect to change "starfish" to "sea star" in one week, unless there is objection. Nereocystis 09:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Done. Now does anyone object to moving the article to 'sea star' and have 'starfish' redirect to 'sea star'? Nereocystis 01:02, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Google test: Sea star gets 11,900,000; starfish only gets 1,240,000. Tony Jin 04:26, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Sea star gets 11 900 000 without quotation marks, but by the 600th entry or so there are pages that don't mention the two words together. "Sea star" gets 195 000, and "sea stars" gets 84 500, considerably less than "starfish".

However, sea star is still preferred among scientists as a common name. I should provide a reference on this, but I don't have it yet. That is why many of us prefer sea star. There are 143,000 seastar references in google.Nereocystis 23:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Geological history

Added the ==Geological history== text from an article I originally in 1998 and published it on the Web....

Dlloyd 00:39, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Portions of this text are :

"Copyright © 1995-1997 The Fossil Company Ltd. © 1997-1999 The British Fossil Company Inc. and licensed by the owner under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." Please contact me if you need further clarification on this.

Dlloyd 00:55, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Is ITIS authoritative?

The ITIS, which I suppose is authoritative, classifies Asteroidea as a subclass of the class Stelleroidea, so I adjusted the taxonomy to reflect this. k.lee 03:03, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

ITIS isn't necessarily authoritative, so things shouldn't be changed to match it. In this particular case, it looks like it doesn't match the system used here and in various other places, since it either doesn't recognize the class Concentricycloidea or refers to it by a very different name. Accordingly, I'm reverting the change.

[edit] Sunstars?

No mention of sunstars, genus solaster. Phyllaplysia mention them in passing as a predator. Interesting since they violate the pentagonal symmetry ( or did I blink and miss a reclassification )--Shoka 21:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

A picture of a sunstar would be great, they are very beautiful animals. The picture could have an accompanying note about symmetry. However, I don't know where to get un-copyrighted animal pictures, so I'll just have to wait for someone else... Citizen Premier 13:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific name?

What is the scientific name they list it nowhere.

Class: Asteroidea--located in the box on the side! Citizen Premier 04:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

How about adding this image to the main article:

Looks like somebody did. I made it into a thumb so it wouldn't skew the page. Citizen Premier 06:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the sea stars and the fishers

I've heard the story a few times of the fishermen who, for some reason, felt that the native starfish were impeding on their harvest, and so they began a policy of cutting all the starfish they found into half and throwing them back in the sea. According to the tale, this effectively doubled the starfish population. Is this story based on actual events or just an allegory for when trying to abolish something actually makes it stronger? Citizen Premier 06:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• Did some investigation on Google to attempt to clarify the section on reproduction. Came across reports of species under controlled conditions in aquarium actually losing about half an arm, by a process of autotomy with the original star surviving happily, and repeating the process, while the severed arms developed into further complete starfish. So at least some species actually use this as a method of asexual reproduction.

• The reports you mention may or may not be allegory, its not at all clear that all stars can do this, but the ability to re form from severed parts is clearly within the capability of some species, and thus your tale is at least potentially based on reality.--Shoka 23:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] info for the taking

My old bio project on this topic is at User:Stellertony/Notepad/Sea_star; I don't know how much, if any, of it would be useful and I don't have time to delve through it all right now, but feel free to take anything out of it that would be useful for this page (or any other). Stellertony the Bookcrosser 09:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for the offer. I'll look.--Shoka 23:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help wanted to identify image

Could anyone help by identifying the species shown in these images uploaded to Commons? William Avery 18:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's Asterias amurensis, the echinoderm that notoriously invaded Australian waters (they are native of Northeastern Pacific, in the seas of Japan and Russia). Make sure that no one misidentify this species with other native Australian sea stars. For more information, click here: Asterias amurensis

Best Regards, Pentapod 16:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

edit: I found a Wikipedia article about this species, so you will be able to place the picture at the correct place by now. Here: Northern Pacific seastar

Thank you. I took a little while to get back to this! William Avery 13:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preditors?

Superficially it seems like stars would make easy prey. What defense mechanisms do they have and who are their preditors?

[edit] Lifespan?

Any idea of average lifespan ?