class Asteroidea

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Related to class Asteroidea: class Echinoidea

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Noun

class Asteroidea - sea stars

Echinodermata, phylum Echinodermata - radially symmetrical marine invertebrates including e.g. starfish and sea urchins and sea cucumbers

sea star, starfish - echinoderms characterized by five arms extending from a central disk

class - (biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more orders

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References in periodicals archive ?

Class Asteroidea, star fish or sea star, is a marine invertebrate that occurs from intertidal to abyssal deep sea area of approximately 6000 m depth [1], which comprises approximately 1900 extant species classified into 36 families and nearly 370 extant genera.

Biology of Incidental Catch Sea Star Stellaster childreni Gray, 1840 (Echinodermata: Asteroidea), from Malaysian Borneo Exclusive Economic Zone

All the features studied in the dermis of this starfish (including mechanical properties, ultrastructure, cholinergic control, and mass decrease) resembled those of holothurian body-wall dermis, which is the best studied material among catch connective tissues, and thus provided definitive evidence for the presence of catch connective tissue in the class Asteroidea. The main functions of dermal stiffening in starfish are in mechanical support and protection.

Mechanical mutability in connective tissue of starfish body wall

The class Asteroidea is part of the phylum Echinodermata, which means "spiny skin." In the case of sea stars, their upper surfaces have a rough layer of dermal gills, which carry out gas exchange, and small, pincerlike spines that ward off barnacles.