Brooke Bowser, No eyes, no brain, no problem: Brittle stars have traveled the world over, and scientists have figured out how, Florida Museum, 10 September 2025
Ancient, gangly cousins of sea stars, brittle stars crawl the seafloor on five flexible arms, which in some cases measure 2 feet long and can be shed and regrown at will. With no eyes, heart or brain, the spiny creature consists mainly of a central disk, which houses a stomach and mouth surrounded by five tooth-lined jaws.
“Brittle stars are great to work with. They have a skeleton, which is useful for identification. They are abundant, so you can find hundreds or thousands of them in an area. And they live in all parts of the world’s oceans,” said Gustav Paulay, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.