Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 10:29 PM
Terribly sorry to have missed Monday's fish of the day everyone, but
Yesterday we were focusing on the Basket Star
Known to the internet by this gif the basket star is thought by most anyone who sees them to be Lovecraftian monsters. The basket star is a brittle star, related to starfish and belonging to the order Euryalida.
The Basket Star even within it's own horrifying right is an amazing creature, growing to be about 70 cm in arm length and having a disk diameter of about 14 cm. In some cases leading to basket stars that are larger than 5 feet in diameter.
On the end of each of their arms they have tiny hooks used to grab prey with, and prey primarily on zooplankton. They hunt like this by settling on the sea floor, or rocks and spreading each arm wide into the current, where other animals will be brushed into them. The hooks then hopeless catch any prey unfortunate enough to have made contact, and is dragged to the basket stars mouth to be eaten.
Basket stars live in deep sea climates, preferring to live close to the sea floor, but they've been recorded as close as 15 meters below sea level.
I hope everyone had a good Monday!