{"id":5574,"date":"2012-03-11T21:04:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T05:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=5574"},"modified":"2021-01-01T20:49:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T04:49:35","slug":"invertebrate-spotlight-sunflower-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2012\/03\/11\/invertebrate-spotlight-sunflower-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Invertebrate Spotlight: Sunflower Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pl-5574\"  class=\"panel-layout\" ><div id=\"pg-5574-0\"  class=\"panel-grid panel-no-style\" ><div id=\"pgc-5574-0-0\"  class=\"panel-grid-cell\" ><div id=\"panel-5574-0-0-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_sow-editor panel-first-child panel-last-child\" data-index=\"0\" ><div\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tclass=\"so-widget-sow-editor so-widget-sow-editor-base\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t>\n<div class=\"siteorigin-widget-tinymce textwidget\">\n\t<h3>By Catherine Drake, <a title=\"Invertebrate Zoology Lab\" href=\"http:\/\/invert.mlml.calstate.edu\/\">Invertebrate Zoology Lab<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>One great aspect of being a graduate student in the invertebrate zoology lab at MLML is that we get the chance to take care of various invertebrates in our aquarium room. \u00a0Currently, we have anemones, mussels, crabs, and sea stars living in our tanks.\u00a0 One of the sea stars, called a sunflower star (<em>Pycnopodia helianthoides<\/em>), is special and gets its own tank for a number of reasons.\u00a0 Firstly, the sunflower star is the largest sea star in the world, and can grow up to one meter in length.\u00a0 Sunflower stars generally have 15 to 24 arms, which is more arms than any other species.\u00a0 They are also the heaviest sea star and can weigh up to 5 kilograms, which is about 11 pounds.\u00a0 So we like to give our big star plenty of room to roam around - sunflower stars are fast and can move up to one meter per minute!<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 432px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/echinoblog.blogspot.com\/2010\/11\/huge-swarms-of-pycnopodia-helianthoides.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Pycnopodia helianthoides\" src=\"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/75\/2014\/05\/ecb8b-pycnopodia2b1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"432\" height=\"286\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many sunflower stars (<em>Pycnopodia helianthoides<\/em>) living in a kelp forest. Sunflower stars are the largest sea star and can be many different colors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Below is a video of our sunflower star, and you will be able to see various distinctive features.\u00a0 Along its arms are tube feet, which operate by hydraulic pressure and are part of the water vascular system that facilitates respiration, movement, and feeding.\u00a0 Sunflower stars generally have about 15,000 tube feet! \u00a0In the center of the body, you can see a white spot, or madreporite, which is a water filter for the vascular system.\u00a0 The blue nodules on the sea star are called pedicellaria, which are pincers on the body wall and are used for protection; if you put your hand on them, it feels like Velcro!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Catherine Drake, Invertebrate Zoology Lab One great aspect of being a graduate student in the invertebrate zoology lab at MLML is that we get the chance to take care of various invertebrates in our aquarium room. \u00a0Currently, we have anemones, mussels, crabs, and sea stars living in our tanks.\u00a0 One of the sea stars, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[158],"class_list":["post-5574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drop-inblog","tag-invertebrates"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21203,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5574\/revisions\/21203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}