How long can starfish live

I pump water instead of blood through my body. What am I? A starfish! For the sake of familiarity, we shall refer to them as starfish. Physical Characteristics and Appearance When it comes to starfish they have a number of interesting features that make them so fascinating to people.

In terms of appearance most starfish have five arms that extend from a circular middle. Depending on the species, some starfish can have more than five arms. As stated earlier starfish that lose an arm are able to regrow that limb over time. The surface of each starfish is what identifies its species. To help with digestion starfish possess two stomachs instead of one. This particular system helps the starfish feed and move through the water.

Instead of having eyeballs, starfish have an eye-spot. On the end of each arm, their eye-spots can sense light and dark. Slower starfish appear to barely move at all when viewed by the naked eye.

Habitat and Migration When it comes to habitat starfish are mostly found in rocky places and can live all over the world as long as they are in the ocean, of course! Diet and Hunting Methods With such a tiny mouth, it is hard to imagine a starfish eating clams but it does!

It grabs its prey with its arms; pulls open the clam or mussel with superhero strength. Starfish also are known as sea stars are the attractive marine animals present in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

Each starfish looks like a star and, although the most common has only five arms, some of these animals can produce up to Its wild habitats include rocky beaches, sandy bottom, coral reefs or even in the deep sea. These amazing sea creatures, belonging to a group of animals called as echinoderms, travel using their tube-shaped legs. They are capable of regenerating the lost limbs and swallow large prey with their unusual stomach.

This raises a question how long does a starfish live. The starfish is a member of phylum Echinodermata. They have a complex radial nervous system that extends throughout the body. This nervous system allows the starfish to sense light, touch, temperature, direction, and condition of the water.

The actions are well-defined by the sensory stimulation and the mechanism is not yet completely understood. For example, a star cannot plan its prey, but if one of its arms touches the food, it will take control of it and drive the starfish to the food.

Although the starfish lives underwater, however, it is not a real fish. The stress of being forced to get out of water is another concern. The mental impact of experiencing a strange condition, let alone the experience is life threatening, may cause death to any animal including starfish.

Animals are prone to mental stress that, even slightest changes in their environment would lead to heavy stress. Unlike human, some animal are not good handler of mental stress. It will then affect their lifestyle and further their physical health. Indeed it is possible for the creature to recover from it, but it would take some time to fully recover.

As an analogy, imagine being kidnapped and tortured by a monster which suddenly appears out of thin air while doing your daily activities. Definitely you will, and such experience will stay in your mind as long as possible. In this case, human is the monster. Many sea creatures, such as starfish, sea cucumbers, and corals are naturally born as extremely fragile creatures. Just a single gentle poke we do to them might hurt them, not to mention a strong grab to get them out of water.

Forcefully taking them out of water with our hands without proper technique is very risky. For your information, those creatures have so many tiny structures all over their bodies. We cannot make sure that what we do to them will not hurt them, just because we cannot see the damage. Another reason not to take the sea creatures out of water by our hands is because our hands might be poisonous to them.

As of now, when they are out in the open air they cannot exchange gases and as a result, they suffer from intoxication, usually with carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. This causes them to die. However, there are many that can only hold their breath for not more than 30 seconds and then they die. A vast majority of these species lies in the coral reefs and a lot of them in the deep ocean beds.

There are other species as well that can last for hours that is between 2 to 28 hours out of the water. Just for example, Sunflower Star Pycnopodia helianthoides is a kind of sub-tidal starfish from the Pacific sea that can last for about 1 to 2 hours on an average. They are known to survive out of water for about 28 hours but not all of the individuals will survive. It depends on their breath-holding stress tolerating level.

No, it is not at all suggested that you take a starfish out of the water. The first reason for not to do such an act is because, if you bring them to the open-air they will die within 3 to 5 minutes due to carbon dioxide intoxication.

Even without taking them out of the water a lot, the constant handling, taking them out and putting them in the water many times, stacking them, putting them together, or placing them on top of each other as if they were a toy for our creativity, are conditions outside the way of life of these animals, which can also cause them to death.

They may also die out of mental stress that is the stress that can occur due to rough and wear and tear type handling of the starfish. This can also occur due to the change in the environment as the starfish is now out of the water. It is also to be noted that they are very soft creatures and are born with intricate and fragile arms and tiny body structures.

And yes, starfish have a great regeneration capability to regenerate their lost arms. And also, do you know that, in spite of its regeneration capabilities, even the slightest touch or poke may hurt or damage them.