Leather Star

Author:  Meaghan Claughton

Photos by D. Young

Scientific name:  Dermasterias imbricata

Size:  Up to 30cm

Identifying Features:  The Leather Star (also known as the ‘Garlic Star’) is a five-armed echinoderm. The Leather Star is often a light grey-blue in colour with red markings and smells faintly of garlic.

Habitat:    The Leather Star is found from the central coast of Alaska to northern Mexico. They generally live among the rocks in low intertidal zones, but can be found up to 300ft deep.

A Leather Star at low tide at Prevost Island, British Columbia

Food/Prey:   Leather Stars often feed on anemones, but will also consume sea cucumbers, sea urchins, sponges, chitons, and fish eggs. Sea stars feed by attaching to their prey with their numerous tube feet. It uses its arms to pry open the prey’s shell, just wide enough so it can squeeze its stomach into the shell. The sea star’s stomach comes out through its mouth, and once inside it’s prey’s shell, digests it, and then retracts the stomach back into its mouth, leaving an empty shell. A Leather Star has been observed feeding on the Stiff-Footed Sea Cucumber (Eupentacta quinquesemita) in our class aquarium.

Predators:   Starfish do not have many predators, as their outer surface is quite hard, but manta rays, sharks, other large fish, and even certain types of snails will eat them. Larger sea stars are also a threat. The Leather Star uses its garlic-like odor to ward of enemies, and like many sea stars, has sensitive skin that can detect chemical changes in the water.

A close up of a Leather Star (Dermasterias imbricata) showing the finger-like papillae that act as gills, an anus on the right, and the medreporite, or sieve plate, on the top left.

Life Cycle:    Sea stars can reproduce sexually and asexually. They reproduce asexually when a part of their body, such as their arm, becomes separated.  The starfish limb can grow into a new sea star, as long as a part of the central body portion is attached. In sexual reproduction, a sea star’s eggs are externally fertilized by a male sea star’s spermatozoa. The fertilized eggs develop into swimming larvae categorized into two groups: Bipinnaria and Brachiolaria. These larvae use cilia to move and eventually settle to the ground when growing into adults.

References

Acadia Oceanside Meadows Inn. Echinoderms, Acadia Oceanside Meadows Inn, Downeast Maine Bed and Breakfast. Retrieved January 22nd, 2012 from www.oceaninn.com/the-nature-preserve/echinoderms/

Cowles, Dave (2005). Dermasterias imbricata, Invertebrates of the Salish Sea. Retrieved January 11th, 2012 fromwww.wallawalla.edu/academics/departments/biology/rosario/inverts/Echinodermata/Class%20Asteroidea/Dermasterias_imbricata.html

Jamison, David W. Leather Star Dermasterias imbricata Explore Puget Sound habitats and marine life with David W. Jamison. Retrieved January 7th, 2012 fromwww.pugetsoundsealife.com/habitats+sealife/Leather_Star.html

Lamb, Andy and Hanby, Bernard P. (2005) Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Invertebrates, Seaweeds, and Selected Fishes

Harbour Publishing: Madeira, British Columbia

North Island Explorer. Leather Star: Dermasterias imbricata, North Vancouver Island Explorer. Retrieved January 7th, 2012 from northislandexplorer.com/echinoderms/leatherstar.htm

(April 6th, 2010) What Eats Starfish? What Eats? – A Food Website for Kids. Retrieved from:www.whateats.com/what-eats-a-starfish