The Leather Type of Starfish

Physical Characteristics

• Leather stars have gray or white skin mottled with reddish-brown spots. Sometimes, these spots prove prevalent enough to make it appear as though the starfish has reddish-brown skin mottled with gray spots. The five legs of the leather star measure as long as 15 cm (approx 6 inches) and taper significantly from their broad bases to their thin tips. Each arm contains a single, blunt spine. Unlike the ambulacral (arm) spines of other starfish, the leather star spine does not create sharp, potentially dangerous protrusions on the animal.

Habitat and Movement

• Leather stars live on the west coast of North America, from Alaska to Baja California, in intertidal and surrounding areas at depths of 300 feet or less. Intertidal areas comprise those exposed to air during low tide but are under water during high tide. Leather stars found by humans commonly inhabit rocks, though sometimes live in sand or mud. Like all starfish, the leather star uses water pressure to ensure that all of its tube feet, of which hundreds exist, move in unison. In this manner, the leather star moves slowly across sea walls, rock shores and rock pilings.

Habits

• Leather stars are ultimately, like all starfish, very simple creatures. Unlike complex animals such as large mammals and reptiles, leather stars do not express desires beyond eating, fertilizing eggs and living in an appropriate habitat. To that end, leather stars spend the majority of their time searching for food, such as purple sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea pens, encrusting sponges and bryozoans, a phylum of aquatic, invertebrate organisms that form moss-like colonies on stones or in seaweed beds. Leather stars swallow prey whole.

Additional Information

• The unique smell of the leather star, which most compare to garlic, constitutes one the animal's distinguishing characteristics. A fact sheet produced by Dave Cowles of Walla Walla University compares the smell of the leather star to burned gunpowder. Female leather stars lay unfertilized eggs in water. Males of the species find groups of eggs laid by females and fertilize them. Scale worms and parasitic barnacles sometimes use leather stars as a host animal from which to feed.