Serpent Star

Care at a glance

Overview

A hardy, mostly peaceful detritivore and cleanup-crew animal that earns its keep turning over the sand bed and clearing uneaten food. Keep one per tank. Well-fed common serpent stars leave fish and inverts alone, but a hungry large individual can ambush a sleeping small fish or shrimp, so target-feed it.

In the wild

A nocturnal scavenger that tucks its central disc deep in the rockwork by day and snakes its smooth banded arms out over the sand and rock at night to find food. It works a live-sand bed and rocky caves hard, stirring the substrate and picking up detritus and leftover food. Give it plenty of rock crevices to anchor in and open bottom to forage.

Good to know

Ophioderma are ophiuroids in the family Ophiodermatidae, set apart from typical brittle stars by smooth, spineless-looking arms and a granular disc. They move by whipping their five flexible arms rather than using tube feet for locomotion, and can shed an arm to escape a predator, regrowing it over time. Unlike some hairy brittle stars they are relatively robust scavengers, though still very sensitive to copper and to sudden salinity or oxygen swings.

Did you know

It can voluntarily drop an arm to escape a grab and later grow it back, and it navigates almost entirely by touch and smell since it has no eyes.

Related species

• 

  Green Brittle Star

  Ophiarachna incrassata

  15.7 in (40 cm)79 gal (300 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Blue Linckia Star

  Linckia laevigata

  11.8 in (30 cm)53 gal (200 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Chocolate Chip Star

  Protoreaster nodosus

  11.8 in (30 cm)53 gal (200 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Red Knob Sea Star

  Protoreaster linckii

  11.8 in (30 cm)53 gal (200 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)
• Wedge Sea Hare

  Dolabella auricularia

  11.8 in (30 cm)50 gal (190 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Long-Spine Urchin

  Diadema setosum

  9.8 in (25 cm)50 gal (190 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)