Random question about starfish

[-][anonymous]13y210

Short answer: It depends, and it varies by the type. "Starfish" isn't a very specific term, after all.

Taking extremes, some cannot survive any significant exposure to air; even a few seconds is lethal -- crown-of-thorns can easily rupture on exposure to air and leak all their body fluids out rapidly. Others, such as ochre stars (a common species on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America) pump themselves full of seawater and then cling tightly to a rock with their hydrostatic tube-feet, retaining water as a heat sink and simply waiting out the high tide. Even species that aren't especially resilient to air exposure may take days to fully die, despite having undergone lethal exposure.

[-]Raemon13y10

Thanks!

[-]Richard_Kennaway13y60

Is this leading up to an assessment of the accuracy of the parable about throwing a starfish back into the sea? (Punchline: "vg znqr n qvssrerapr gb gung bar".)

If you search inside this book for the word "starfish" there's a chapter-length telling of that story (the whole book being an elaboration of the parable), with some concrete details of what happens to stranded starfishes of at least one sort, on at least one beach somewhere.

[-]TrE13y60

I was searching for "asteroidea" (biological term for sea stars) on google scholar, and found the term "desiccation" alongside it. So I did a search for exactly that, but found no exact time spans. However, it seems like some sea star species have to survive periods of dryness during tides, so I'd say 12 hours should be about a maximum. Just a wild guess, though. It apparently matters if there is sun or not as heat will dry them out quickly.

Anyway, I learned a lot about sea stars in the process

[-]Raemon13y40

Thanks.

asteroidea (biological term for sea stars)

This makes my own searches make far more sense. Articles kept talking about asteroids and I was so confused.

[-]TrE13y00

Glad I could help (somewhat).

[-]Raemon13y00

Helped, at least insofar as I'm unlikely to be grossly wrong about something in a way the average smart person can debunk.

[-]TrE13y00

What is it? Some sort of story, a game, or an analyzing article?

[-]Raemon13y50

I like cultivating an air of mystery before a reveal.

[-]NancyLebovitz13y00

Humidity level should matter, too.

[-]Nisan13y20

I have a feeling that you're about to do something very interesting, and I look forward to bearing about it!

[-]Raemon13y00

Thanks all. Originally thought I'd get this done within a day or two, but right now its looking like about 2 weeks before I post the end product. (I want to believe next weekend, but you know, planning fallacy and such)

In the meantime... it says there are 13 comments but I see twelve. Hmrr?

[-]Wei Dai13y00

In the meantime... it says there are 13 comments but I see twelve. Hmrr?

There's an additional spam comment that has been hidden (presumably by a moderator, unless there's an automated spam filter here that I don't know about).