''Comaster nobilis'', the noble feather star or yellow feather star, is a

crinoid Crinoids are marine invertebrates that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that remain attached to the sea floor by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms, called feather stars or comatulids, are ...

in the family

Comatulidae Comatulidae is a family of comatulid crinoids. Since 2015, it replaces the family Comasteridae. Description and characteristics This family is of recent restoration, and still has no consensual description. However the description of the fam ...

. It was previously classified as ''Comanthina nobilis'' but further research showed that it was better placed in the genus ''

Comaster ''Comaster'' is a genus of crinoids. Species The following species are included in the genus by the World Register of Marine Species: * ''Comaster audax'' Rowe, Hoggett, Birtles & Vail, 1986 * ''Comaster multifidus'' (Müller, 1841) * ''Comaster ...

''.

Description

''Comaster nobilis'' can reach a diameter of about . It has a cup-shaped body with 35-40 arms, extended out from the central disc. This species may occur in a number of colour variations. Usually it has yellow arms, sometimes with some black or green and white on the under surface close to the centre. It feeds on detritus, phytoplankton and zooplankton. The larvae of this feather star swim freely with plankton for a few weeks, then they settle down growing into a stalked form. Mature specimen break the stalk becoming free-living.

Distribution

This species is widespread in the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, from

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

and

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

up to

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Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

and

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Habitat

It is found on hard or soft corals in shallow water reefs, at a depth of 10 – 50 m.

References

WoRMS

EoL

Bardode of Life

* Shimek, R. L. (2004). Marine Invertebrates: Introduction to Feather Stars or Crinoids. TFH Publications. pp. 364–366

External links

Dive Planet

Animals described in 1884 Comatulidae {{Crinoidea-stub