New Occurrence of Abnormal Sea Star, Astropecten indicus from Mudasalodai, South East Coast of India

K Chamundeeswari,S Saranya

doi:10.4172/2168-9296.1000116

Abstract

A marine invertebrate of starfish is a most familiar one. It was mainly occur on the seabed and diversity of starfish is remarkable ones. Astropecten sp is not easily identified organism while a number of species a long-lived planktotrophic larval stage. As a rule of pentamerism, Astropecten indicus strictly produces only 5 arms but some time the number was lesser than or greater than five and shows its abnormality. The reason may be of regeneration of plate systems which is responsible for forming the whole organs during larval metamorphosis or regenerating the lost plate systems in the disc in the later stages or due to environmental factors or may be of mutation.

Highlights

Sea stars or starfishes are the class Asteroidea of phylum Echinodermata consisting of 1890 species with 36 families and approximately 370 genera [1]
The sea star A. indicus is a member of order Paxillosida, Family Astropectinidae
The present study produces the preliminary report on the abnormal A. indicus caught as by-catch from Mudasalodai, southeast cost of India

Summary

Introduction

Sea stars or starfishes are the class Asteroidea of phylum Echinodermata consisting of 1890 species with 36 families and approximately 370 genera [1]. Presence of water vascular system is another important feature in this group which assists most of the functions such as locomotion, respiration, food gathering and excretion They use papule a very transparent retractile structure for respiration. Sea stars play vital role in maintaining benthic community due to their predatory activities and some of them act as key species [3] They used as model organism in the area of community structure and feeding ecology [4,5]. The present study produces the preliminary report on the abnormal A. indicus caught as by-catch from Mudasalodai, southeast cost of India

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Results

Conclusion