research on starfish

[riya_tika]

i like to have some answers for the following questions, regarding starfish:
1. does this animal prefer to live along, with another animal of the same kind, or with a crowd
2. how does it communicate with others of its kind
3. does it compete with other animals for any resoucesuch as food, space, shelter and breeding sites
4. what sort of mouth parts has it to capture its food
5.what sort of sense organs does it have to locate its food
6.does it ghange its behaviour during breeding season
7.how many young does a pair of these animals produce in a year

i urgently need answers for the above

Edited---BioTeam

[Dr.Stein]

1. Starfish has sensitive censor organs locate on the tip of their arms.
2. Yes.
3. I don't think so.

[nugget]

4. i know sea urchins have an aristotles lantern which is like 3/4 large tooth like things that continuouslt grow and are in a pyramid shape. Perhaps starfish might also?

[MrMistery]

when i learned about the artistotles lantern it said "a characteristic of echinoderms".. i never asked myself if they all have it. but doing some research, it turnes out it is true, they all have it.

[nugget]

ahh cool thanks for verifying that, yeh i learned it as a echinoderm characteristic, but in my mind i had the image of the urchin, u know how tha happens hehe

[February Beetle]

1. I have seen pictures of big masses of sea stars
3.It competes directly with other echinoderms, I do believe.
4. To actually capture their food they use their arms with tube feet, when they eat clams they secrete digestive (stuff) in the shell, waits for awhile, then sucks it out. at least this is what i remember from class, i haven't looked it up.
It is too slow to capture it's food with it's mouth, me thinks.

[Darby]

For most of the questions you're asking, there's no such thing as "starfish." There are many different species in several groups, and you're talking about them like they were a single species - the answers would vary from species to species. If someone wrote these questions and expects you to answer them, either they don't know enough to be asking answreable questions or they are talking about a particular type of starfish. It almost sounds like a set of questions about crown-of-thorns starfish, but maybe not.

So far as I know, Aristotle's lantern isn't found in starfish - that probably means that it is, occasionally (it's biology, and never say never in biology), but of the few species I've dissected, I've haven't seen a starfish that had one.

[riya_tika]

read my ouestions first, its lab assignment questions on starfish. Not Aristole's lantern!!

[nugget]

ooo So-rryyyyyy we answered that i guess thats as far as we know for now mate. it is quite important because of u look at ur question number 4 it might help because that is its mouthpart!!!! if u did some research my friend u would know =))

[riya_tika]

no need to worry its submitted, teacher helped