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Crown-of-Thorns Starfish — printable fact sheet
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Crown-of-Thorns Starfish
Acanthaster planci
Acanthaster planci eats reef-building coral by pushing its own stomach out through its mouth, spreading it over the coral like a sheet, and digesting the living tissue off the skeleton in place — leaving behind a clean white scar that algae quickly colonise. A single adult can s…
Did you know?
- A single adult Crown-of-Thorns Starfish can consume up to 6 square meters of living coral per year.
- It can regrow from a severed arm if part of the central disc goes with it, which is why the old practice of chopping them up made outbreaks worse. The giant triton, a large predatory sea snail, is one of the few animals that reliably eats them, and its collection for the shell trade may have contributed to the problem. A starfish stung deep into the hand can leave the wound painful and swollen for weeks, and spine fragments break off and stay embedded. Outbreak waves are known to travel down the Great Barrier Reef from north to south over roughly 15 years, carried by larvae drifting on the current.
What I learned
Draw the crown-of-thorns starfish
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