Echinodermata · echinoderms
Northern basket star
Gorgonocephalus arcticus
Gorgonocephalidae · basket starsIUCN: Not evaluated
A brittle star relative with endlessly branching, coiling arms.
Fun factAt night it unfurls its arms into a living plankton net.
- Waters
- Northeast US, Northwest Atlantic, Arctic Ocean
- Depth zone
- Continental shelf, Deep sea & continental slope
- Diet
- Plankton (filter feeder)
- Size
- Up to 70 cm across
Classification
Echinodermata › Ophiuroidea › Gorgonocephalidae
- Kingdom Animalia animals
- Many-celled organisms that eat other living things for energy (heterotrophs)
- Cells have no cell walls
- Most can move at some stage of life
- Clade Bilateria bilateral animals
- Body has a left and right side that mirror each other (bilateral symmetry)
- Head end with concentrated nerves; three tissue layers
- Includes about 99% of all living animal species
- Clade Deuterostomia deuterostomes
- In the embryo, the first opening becomes the anus and the mouth forms second
- Includes echinoderms and chordates
- Phylum Echinodermata echinoderms
- Adults usually have five-part radial symmetry
- Water-vascular system powers tiny tube feet
- Skeleton of limestone plates (ossicles) in the skin
- Class Ophiuroidea brittle & basket stars
- Brittle and basket stars: long, flexible arms sharply set off from a small disc
- Move by snaking their arms; no suckers on tube feet
- Family Gorgonocephalidae basket stars
- Basket stars whose arms branch again and again
- Spread their arms into a net to catch plankton
- Genus Gorgonocephalus
- Species in the same genus are very close relatives and often look alike.
- Species Gorgonocephalus arcticus Northern basket star