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Dieren en planten

Invertebrates   Echinoderms   Green sea urchin   Sea potato   Starfish   Mussel   Bivalves   

Starfish

size:

maximum 50 centimeters, usually 10 centimeters in diameter

color:

light orange to deep purple

age:

5 to 10 years

food:

all kinds of mollusc, particularly bivalves; animal wastes

reproduction:

sexual and vegetative

  • Dut: (gewone) Zeester
  • Lat: Asterias rubens
  • Eng: Common starfish
  • Ger: Gemeiner Seestern
  • Dan: Søstjerner
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Common starfish, foto fitis, sytske dijksen

Starfish

Place a live starfish on a wet surface, it will quickly attach itself to it using its strong suction cups. Try removing it, it won't be easy. It can even break open mussels with these strong suctions. Starfish use seawater to steer the feet. A smooth spot on top of the starfish is for filtering water. Its anus is also on top, precisely in the middle. Its mouth is exactly opposite, on the underside of the body.

On Texel


It doesn't happen often, but sometimes hundreds of starfish wash ashore at one time along the Texel beaches. It's more likely to happen in the winter, with easterly winds. The animals are paralyzed from the cold.

You can usually find starfish on the tidal flats among the mussels. Most often, they are very tiny.

  • On Texel

    It doesn't happen often, but sometimes hundreds of starfish wash ashore at one time along the Texel beaches. It's more likely to happen in the winter, with easterly winds. The animals are paralyzed from the cold.

    You can usually find starfish on the tidal flats among the mussels. Most often, they are very tiny.

  • Distribution and habitat
    young common starfish, foto fitis, sytske dijksen

    Common starfish are the most prevalent species of starfish in the North Sea, delta waters and Wadden Sea. You often find them on mussel banks and in pools on breakwaters and sea dikes, where groups of mussels cluster together. They live between the intertidal area and 650 meters deep.

  • Persistence pays off
    Common starfish and Mussel, foto fitis, sytske dijksen

    Starfish love to eat mussels, but these shellfish are known for closing their shell very tightly. Even for humans, fresh live mussels are difficult to open. However, starfish can crack a mussel open by setting two of its arms on the one valve and the other arms on the other valve. The mussel will close its valves with its strong adductor, however the starfish has patience. Besides the fact that the mussel spends energy holding the adductor shut, it has closed off its source of oxygen since no water is flowing through. When the mussel starts to tire, the starfish begins to pull. After 'fighting' for several hours, the shell halves start to separate. The starfish will invert its stomach into the shell and digest the mussel inside its own home.