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Thursday, January 4, 2007

Starfish are Echinoderms

In response to his Grandmother's questions about starfish, Boy has prepared the following interesting facts about starfish:

* Sea Stars, Sea urchins, Sea Cucumbers and Crinoids (feathering looking creatures with many more than 5 arms) are called Echinoderms (scientific name).

* Sea stars (starfish) don’t send their food to their stomachs. They send their stomachs to their food. Their insides come out and cover over their food to digest it.

* Starfish come in all sorts of bright and pale colours: red, blue, yellow, orange and pink. Some starfish are just the one colour and some have spots and blobs of different colours.

* If a starfish gets a broken arm, its arm will grow back. The broken off piece of arm can also grow into a starfish.

* Starfish are known as the vacuum cleaners of the ocean. They live on the bottom of the ocean floor and vacuum it clean. Many starfish means a good clean carpet. I asked the man at the Aquarium if I could have two to keep in my bedroom.

* A Starfish mouth is on their under belly and they have an eye on the end of each of their fingers.

* Sea Cucumbers are cool. If you cut a Sea Cucumber in halves, you would see the shape of a star. Some people eat Sea Cucumbers. In Asia the people love them.

* Sea Cucumbers filter the food from the sand. They suck sand and food in one end and they squirt clean sand out the other.


Related article that started us on our current marine life learning:
Some very interesting Boy information about Turtles: Turtle Facts.

2 comments:

Sue Bayliss said...

Well. Stone the crows! What a groovy answer you gave me. Cool, 'ay. Now I understand why that lagoon in Vanuatu looked so clear, clean and beautiful. Thank you for such a detailed, informative response. Also, your information about turtles is amazing. I have got several photographs of really large sea turtles that Grandad took during many of his Army travels in 'Small Ships' around the Pacific countries. I will sort through all the photographs and get them out for you. Love you. Grandma (Grandad too!) XXXX

Megan Bayliss said...

TY G'Ma.

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