Tentacled sea creature hauled up from Sentosa waters not a spawn of Satan

Phew.

Belmont Lay| October 16, 05:47 PM

A tentacled sea creature that looks like Satan's spawn hauled up in late September from the waters of Sentosa is most likely to be a basket star.

starfish

Angler Ramlan Saim's Facebook video of the creature has been viewed more than 8 million times worldwide in less than a month.

 

According to I Fucking Love Science:

This amazing creature is called a basket star. It belongs to the phylum echinoderm, which makes it related to other radially symmetrical marine animals like sea stars, sand dollars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. More specifically, basket stars are brittle stars, which are set apart from other sea stars by their comparatively thin, gangly arms. Basket stars typically live in the deep sea, as deep as 2000 meters (1.2 miles) below the surface.

While basket stars start out with five main arms connected to a central disc, smaller appendages grow over time in fractal patterns. Altogether, the diameter of their arms can reach up to 70 centimeters (27.5 inches). All of these arms help the basket star collect bits of food floating in the water.

 

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