- Where they eat is also where they go to the bathroom,
so this creature both eats and poops out of the same orifice
which definitely gross for a human,
but for a sea star completely normal.
(adventurous music)
- All right, GoPro is rolling.
What's goin' on everybody?
I'm Mark Vins and welcome back
to another Brave Crew Exclusive,
and right now we're in Grand Cayman
at world famous Starfish Point.
And as you may be able to tell from the name,
we are here to see sea stars,
and we didn't have to go far to find 'em.
You can see our boat ladder is right there
and right in front of us is one, two, three--
Oh, Corey, you got one crawling up your foot.
Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine red cushion star,
and let me just go ahead and pick one up.
This is one of the most iconic sea stars in all the world.
I'm sure you recognize it from post cards and photographs
and really anywhere you might see an image of a sea star.
Now a lot of people call them starfish
which isn't technically wrong, that is the adopted name,
but in more of a science sense they are a sea star.
This is about the average size,
even though they can grow larger,
and they traditionally have five points.
You can count 'em right there one, two, three, four, five,
but sometimes they have four points,
sometimes they have six points.
Looks like all of these
are the traditional five-point stars.
And they do move you can see like they started,
congregated all together and since we came upon them
they are starting to disperse,
so anybody can come and do this,
this is a local favorite spot here in Grand Cayman,
and you are allowed to pick up the sea stars.
You can touch them, you can pet them, take photographs,
take video like we're doing here.
The one thing they ask you not to do
is to remove the sea stars from the water.
And they ask you to not do that,
because the big word of the day madreporite,
that's the center spot on the top of the star
is where they breathe,
and if you remove them from the water too often,
you can actually suffocate the sea star,
and we hate to do that,
because we want people to be able to come back and enjoy
the spot time and time again.
You can see the coloration is absolutely vivid.
They get their name "red cushion star"
for that burnt orange, reddish color that they have,
but to me kinda looks more like a giraffe pattern
which I think is pretty cool.
So now let's flip these over,
take a look at the underside there.
You can see the feet.
All are lined with the appendages,
and those are the locomotive appendages of the sea star,
that's what enables them to walk and move around.
They're like little legs,
and then in the center is the mouth.
And here's somethin' a little weird,
the mouth is also the butt.
And you may have put it together now where they eat
is also where they go to the bathroom,
so this creature both eats and poops out of the same orifice
which, kinda gross for a human,
definitely gross for a human,
but for a sea star, completely normal.
All right, I'm gonna put this one back.
Let's get one of the juveniles.
I thought I saw a smaller one.
Did it get away?
- [Corey] I think it ran away.
- [Mark] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
yeah, it got away.
- [Corey] Literally had a starfish earlier.
- Oh wait, here it is.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
Almost lost it.
I was really excited about this one.
This is a juvenile.
And you can see the juveniles
have a slightly greenish hue to them.
And they're even greener when they're smaller than this,
but this is not a full adult yet,
and you can tell by the coloration.
It will turn more of that burnt orange,
again you see the edges are starting to get that color.
These sea stars can grow to be quite large,
actually they can grow to be 12 inches across.
This is definitely a juvenile,
probably closer to five to six inches.
Oh look, a jellyfish, right there.
So apparently there are also jellyfish out here.
Want to be careful of that,
probably shoulda worn longer pants today,
but we'll just keep our eyes peeled, eek.
Look at that, that one, that might be the most stunning one
out here in my opinion.
Deep, deep orangeish red, very pretty.
And even the spikes on this one and the cross pattern
is an orange color.
So I would say we can see why the red cushion star
gets its name from its appearance.
Now like all sea stars these red cushion stars
have light sensing organs at the end of their points
or their eyes for lack of a better term.
And if you ever want to look a sea star in the eye,
all you have to do is tilt it up a little bit,
and say, "Hey buddy! I'm gonna put you back, don't worry."
Even though Echinoderm which is the family
that these belong to means spiky skin,
you don't have to worry about picking these up,
they're not sharp,
they're not gonna thorn you or anything like that.
However, there are things out here that will,
so always know what you're picking up before you do so.
These sea stars are so cool.
And they, at first, when you pick them up appear very rigid,
they almost feel like a rock.
Here, Corey, why don't you put your hand out and touch that?
- [Corey] Oh yeah, it is rigid.
- It does, right?
It feels like a rock, but when you hold them,
you can actually feel their arms start to morph
around your hand, so they are a living creature.
They are quite pliable, they're able to change
the shape of their body to adhere to any structure
that they're clinging onto.
Right now, obviously, on this sandy bottom
they're completely laying flat,
but sometimes when they're on coral or rocks,
they will have to use those arms to wrap around and grip on,
so they don't get swept away by the tide or the current.
Now here's a really weird fact,
they actually have the ability to regenerate their points.
So let's say this sea star were to lose its points,
sometimes they'll drop them off,
and as a defense, sometimes a predator might eat them,
but they will be able to regrow that appendage.
And here's another cool fact:
If they were actually were to be split in half,
they could become two separate sea stars,
so by dividing the sea star,
you can actually make two completely new organisms,
similar to the segmented worm.
Well, I think that about does it for us here today.
We had an absolute blast here at Starfish Point
getting up close and personal
with the world's most iconic sea star--the red cushion star.
I'm Mark Vins, be brave, stay wild.
We'll see you guys on the next one.
All right, back to the sand.
We gotta get back on the boat.
Let's go, guys.
(water rippling)
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