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Distribution: North Carolina to Brazil, introduced in Cape Verde
Size Length: 0,2 to 0,5m diameter
Size of maturity: 0,24m diameter
Life expectancy: Depends on food availability
Diet: Omnivores
Social life: Solitary
IUCN red list status: Not Evaluated
Red-cushion-sea-star (Oreaster reticulatus) has a central disc from which their five tapered arms radiate. Their growth and life expectancy is dependent on food availability, in situations of low food availability they reabsorb their own tissue. As a mechanism of protection against predators it has an outer shell with spines, and as juveniles they are green which works as camouflage.
Their diet is very vast, eating from microorganisms on the sediment till other invertebrates like other echinoids, polychaetes or molluscs but also algae. Like many other marine invertebrates, they are filter-feeding animals.
Red-cushion-sea-star is one oviparous animal and their fertilization is external which means that the fusion between the egg and spermatozoa occurs outside the female body. The reproduction occurs in the summer in warmer areas, the presence of many animals is a guarantee that fertilization occurs. There are no parental cares known.
One of the biggest threats to red-cushion-sea-stars is the over-harvesting to aquarium trade and also to be dried and sold out as souvenirs.
