Seasonal tissue-specific gene expression in wild crown-of-thorns starfish reveals reproductive and stress-related transcriptional systems. PLOS Biology, 2024; 22 (5): e3002620 DOI: 10.1371/journal ...

Sea stars may look like they're cuddling, but these underwater gatherings serve surprising survival and reproductive purposes ...

What they found is that starfish don't have a head-to-tail axis that runs from the center to arms, from its top to its belly or from one side of its arms to the other.

In the name of survival, starfish sever their own body parts to escape predators. They will also eventually regenerate those lost limbs, but how this biological process works has remained a mystery.

Some species of starfish reproduce asexually by tearing apart their bodies, while others reproduce sexually only. This makes them particularly interesting animals to study.

Biologists can also watch starfish and brittle stars doing this in their labs or in marine stations. But, until now, scientists weren’t sure how old this form of reproduction was.

For some starfish, reproduction and limb regeneration function similarly. New generations of starfish emerge from self-amputation; that is, this invertebrate generates another starfish from the ...

Mature crown-of-thorns reproduce sexually, a process that, like its feeding, is crude, but effective. Allen said the COTS have distinct genders, but there is no boy-meets-girl stuff. “They’re ...

Starfish sexually reproduce by a process called spawning, with many individuals releasing great quantities of eggs or sperm into the water from their sexual organs, located in their arms.