Starfish
Physical Description
• Starfish are hard-skinned
animals which have spines
that help to protect them.
• They dont have bones and
they are NOT fish, they are
Echinoderms: spiny-
skinned invertebrates that
live on the ocean floor.
• Other echinoderms are the
sea cucumbers and the sea
urchin.
Feeding
• Starfish are carnivores, they eat clams,
oysters, coral and mussels.
• It grasps the tightly closed shell of the
oyster with the tube-feet on its arms and
tugs and pulls until it has opened a small
crack in the shell. Then it sticks its stomach
out through its mouth and gets it into its
prey’s shell. The soft body of the mollusc is
digested and the starfish then pulls its
stomach back to its body.
• While it is eating it often gives off a special
poison that drives away the other starfish
so that they don’t take its food
Locomotion and Interesting Facts
• Starfish move very slowly along the
sea floor using hundreds of tiny
tube-feet, that are like little tubes
with a circle at the end, that help it
to walk and climb; if a wave moves
the starfish it will hold onto a rock
with its tube feet.
• If a starfish loses one arm it will
grow again easily.
Starfish’s Brain
• Starfish do not have
true brains. They have a
cluster of nerves called
ganglia that form a ring
in the centre of the
starfish.
• With the exception of
eye spots in the tip of
each arm there are no
specialised sense
organs (such as eyes or
ears). These eyespots
sense light and smell.