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02.05.10 News
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Picture of the Day

Brittle Sea Star

Brittle stars use their arms for locomotion. They do not, like sea stars, depend on tube feet. Brittle stars move fairly rapidly by wriggling their arms which are highly flexible and enable the animals to make either snake-like or rowing movements. Their movement has some similarities with animals with bilateral symmetry.

This is just one of the thousands of species of "tidepool treasures"--marine plants and animals found in the small bodies of water left by the ebbing tide that fill the rock basins and depressions along California's rocky shores.

Image credit: Genny Anderson, Santa Barbara City College