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The short-spined crown-of-thorns starfish, ''Acanthaster brevispinus'', is one of the two members of the ''Acanthaster'' genus of starfish, along with the much more well-known ''Acanthaster planci'', the common crown-of-thorns starfish. ==Physical description== The body form of ''A. brevispinus'' is fundamentally the same as that of a typical starfish or seastar. Like ''A. planci'', however, its distinctive traits include being disc-shaped, multiple-armed with multiple madreporites, flexible, prehensile, and densely spined, and having a large ratio of stomach surface to body mass. Its prehensile ability arises from the two rows of numerous tube feet that extend to the tip of each arm. In being multiple-armed, it has lost the five-fold symmetry (pentamerism) typical of starfish, although it begins with this symmetry in its life cycle. ''A. brevispinus'' is readily distinguished from ''A. planci'' in that it has: * dense blunt spines over the upper (aboral) surface of its disc * short pedicillaria on its aboral surface * purple-brown aboral surface becoming more intense along the arms * blotches of darker colour around the perimeter of the disc and along the arms, including a large blotch at the base of each arm * pale marks on the disc between each arm * spines along it arms which are not as long as in ''A. planci'' Image:Crown of Thorns Starfish at Malapascuas Island.jpg|Specimen shot in Philippines Image:Acanthaster brevispinus - National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo - DSC07041.JPG|Preserved specimen at the Tokyo museum 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Short-spined crown-of-thorns starfish」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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