World of Wonder: Basket Star -The Toast

Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s previous World of Wonder columns can be found here.

When you talk about basket stars (Gorgonocephalus eucnemis), you have to talk about moxie. A basket star isn’t a sea star—it travels as it pleases across sponges and coral with its five arms, not on tiny tubed feet like a sea star.

Basket stars are the biggest of all brittle stars—from tendrilly arm to even more tendrilly arm, basket stars measure about three feet long. These arms are a party waiting to happen—all tiny hooks and pins to catch arrow worms, plankton, and even tiny jellyfish. If ocean currents get too wild, the basket star doesn’t freak out and get all tangled up like some curly-fries nightmare. Instead, it quietly hunkers down and curls into a tight intestine-y mass. Marine biologists call this being cryptic among sponges. I call it being cool and collected. Here’s what it looks like just chilling, even though it had just been caught by a fisherman and is now hanging out on the side of a boat.

See? Forget honey badgers. Basket stars don’t care! It says Go ahead and stare all you want, I wanted to see the sunshine anyway. And did I mention they are bloodless? Nothing to spill but water that circulates and filters throughout their wildly extravagant bodies. At night, when they aren’t being cryptic, basket stars find a nice side of coral to hang onto and then it will extend its other four messy arms to sweep the ocean for tiny goodies, especially for their favorite arrow worms. Once their arms weigh heavier with food, the basket star draws them inward to the underbelly and into its mouth. Delish!

To fully appreciate how the basket star partakes of a meal of a fine and fragrant crustacean mist, watch here:

And now it’s your turn, Wonder-ful Ones: what animal eats in a strangely mesmerizing method of gobbling you can’t bear to look away, even though you want to? Let me know in the comments (preferably with video link) below!

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Lucky Fish. She is a professor of English and teaches poetry and environmental lit at a small college in Western New York. She is obsessed with peacocks, jellyfish, and school supplies. Follow her on Twitter: @aimeenez.

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bibliophibian 116p · 525 weeks ago

I love the basket star; it's right up there with the harp sponge in terms of awesome. https://vimeo.com/79402430

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Claudia · 525 weeks ago

I didn't see the movie, but I guess there's a part of Boyhood where the boy asks the dad if magical creatures exist and he replies (paraphrasing) that, yes, in a way, because would you believe about whales, and he goes into details. No elves, but yes, magical creatures.

That's how I feel about this but ten-fold. So incredible. The video of it chillin', especially. I wouldn't have believed this was a real thing had I only read about it. Part of the reason for my disbelief, too, is the fact that I'm 42 and am just now hearing about this? How can that be?

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bibliophibian 116p · 525 weeks ago

I love the basket star; it's right up there with the harp sponge in terms of awesome. https://vimeo.com/79402430

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sausagedog 127p · 525 weeks ago

no no no no no these things terrify me. that fishing boat video is the stuff of nightmares.

my favorite creepy-eater is definitely the hagfish, though. Here is a video charmingly explaining their methods of consumption. Slimy!

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avidbiologist · 524 weeks ago

WAAAAA this is amazingggg

I really enjoy watching turtles eat. They're very deliberate, but it's oddly satisfying to watch their necks extend and retract.

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Rapunzel · 524 weeks ago

On the boat, on the boat, yuck yuck yuck forever :( Weird un-pleasant butterflies in my stomach urgh urgh urgh

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briliantmistake 120p · 524 weeks ago

The deep sea is full of our most glorious nightmares. One of my favorite feeders is the yeti crab, which lives around hydrothermal vents. It gardens filamentous bacteria on it's arms, which it then snacks on for food. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3fJAHWTNpc

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Household_Opera 104p · 524 weeks ago

How does something simultaneously fall into both the "incredibly cool" category and the "super-unleaded nightmare fuel" category? H.P. Lovecraft could have invented this creature, if he was feeling sufficiently inspired.

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Unreadaethel 127p · 524 weeks ago

I want to wear this and its filigree arms as a pendant, or perhaps a bracelet.

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damanoid 134p · 524 weeks ago

That basket star is something else, all right. I love those intricate, clutching tendrils. Nature rocks so hard, it is a billion-year acid trip. Can we as a species maybe not kill everything else on the planet in a Tasmanian Devil-cyclone of frenzied consumption and toxic industrial byproducts? Can we figure out a way to avoid that outcome? That would be great, thanks.

I was recently intrigued by some circulating videos of cuttlefish, which are claimed to have a literally "mesmerizing" attack-- supposedly they use their color-changing ability to hypnotize their prey into immobility, at least if the accompanying articles are to be believed, which I don't. It's undeniably an impressive display, but I need to see some kind of evidence proving that it's even possible to hypnotize a crab.* I reckon it's more likely to be some kind of funky camouflage pattern that, though disco-like to us, is optically baffling to crabs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1T4ZgkCuiM

Sorry, National Geographic, but you do your credibility no favors by pushing this topic as one of the "World's Deadliest Predators," at least to those of us who aren't tiny crabs. Shame on you! What would Eugenie Clark say?

THE SAVAGE CUTTLEFISH

*Hell, I don't know, make it act like a chicken or something? I ain't no crabologist.

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damanoid 134p · 524 weeks ago

Dang, in the process of composing my previous post, I learned that Dr. Eugenie Clark passed away just a couple weeks ago at age 92. Somehow the ocean seems a bit smaller now.

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Redding Real Estate 25p · 524 weeks ago

Phenomenal messages additionally data. It's really a conspicuous procedure for the modeler to parcel their viable estimations further guesses to option. Restrict up the respectable methodology.

World of Wonder: Basket Star

ByAimee Nezhukumatathil

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