WEIRD fact about brittle stars

[toyfreek]

so im comming home f4om work and on a local talk radio show the host says "this is weird." and then proceeds to read an article im assuming from the APP. this article starts off about how for decades sceintists have been trying to figure out why the brittle star AKA serpent star could seemingly see preditors and flee from them without any eyes even in quite murkey conditions and they always flee in the right direction....away. well it turns out that brittle stars are ONE GIANT COMPOUND EYE!!!
no crap I'm not making this up. It was on the Mishke broadcast on KSTP 1500AM in minneapolis at around 9:45PM im still trying to coraborate this broadcast....but if its true....WOW! i got hundreds of little eyes running around in my substrate!

 

[Mac1]

Yup, I remember reading about this a little while ago... Can't remember if it was here or on another board somewhere's... The Star's have tiny spicules or something embedded in their tissue, that act like mirror's (Solar Tube I think is a more accurate analogy), that focus the light directly onto their nerve bundles (running along the arms). It is thought that by this mechanism, the stars are able to see shifts in light patterns, and recognize movement and direction. How they react to it, well that's another matter altogether.

- Mac

 

[arnjer]

I finally got a pic of mine right after I turned on the lights. I had to take some of the green out since the halides are greenish for the first 15 or so seconds. I have no idea what species it is since it hitchhiked in.


Jerry

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: arnjer ]

 

[jdeets]

There actually have been some very good news articles on this recently. Do a search for "brittle star" on any news website and you'll find a lot more detail on it. It is amazing. They're going to study these photoreceptors because they think that if they can figure out how they work, they will be able to use them instead of semiconductors in microprocessors and that we'll then be able to have desktop supercomputers. At least that's what I remember reading--hopefully I'm not getting my articles mixed up...

 

[ophiuroid]

OR...

You can go to my little old website (link below) for all you need to know on this latest news, and other interesting facts about these lovely creatures.

Now, this finding still doesn't explain A LOT. Brittlestars do not have brains, and we can't understand how they can process this information coming in from these lenses.

Brittlestars, like other echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins and sea cukes) are made of calcite. In some species of brittlestars, each arm plate has dozens of lenses (the calcite plate, which is covered by skin, has taken on this shape). There are some good photos on some of the websites or these 'lenses.' There are many brittlestars that have very advanced predatory behaviors, but are found in the deep sea...so, no light! How do they do it? No clue! If you have the big black spiny brittlestar, you will see a color change from dark during the day (which is effectively like wearing sunglasses to shield the lenses) to light at night (opening their 'eyes'). This color change is what first tipped scientists that something strange was going on. These large spiny brittlestars are often in the genus Ophiocoma as is the beast that was studies by Bell Labs.

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Brittlestars!! http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid
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[jemichaeliv]

That is a Harlequin Serpent Star from what I can see which is reef safe. They sell them on Reeftopia.com you can go there and scroll down and you will see the image of one. There identical except for a little color which could just be the camera or the lighting above them in the tank.