Gorgonocephalus on white gorgonian
PU1041
What a strange vegetal? animal? In fact it's a starfish, a Gorgonocephalus: Astrospartus mediterraneus. It's a deep sea creature: from 40 to 800 meters. During the day, it curls up into a tight ball shape to protect itself from predators. At night, it climbs to an elevated point to feed by extending its intricately branched feeding arms in order to snare passing plankton and other organisms from the current. It can be very large (nearly 1 meter diameter), but guess how large is this one? impossible to tell. It iis in the "day position", hooked to a gorgonian and protected forever in this glass case. There has been some beautifull drawings made by Ernst Haeckel around 1880 of these incredible basket starfish.
