Starfish to starfish by the French zoologist de Blainville in 1830. It is derived from the Greek "aster", ἀστήρ (a star) and the Greek "eidos", εἶδος (form, likeness, appearance). The class Asteroidea belongs to the phylum Echinodermata. As well as the starfish, the echinoderms include sea urchins, sand dollars, brittle and basket stars, sea cucumbers and crinoids. The larvae of echinoderms have bilateral symmetry, but during metamorphosis this is replaced with radial symmetry, typically pentameric. Adult echinoderms are characterized by having a water vascular system with external tube feet and a calcareous endoskeleton consisting of ossicles connected by a mesh of
Starfish from bilateral organisms, starfish move in a bilateral fashion, with certain arms acting like the front of the animal. The body wall consists of a thin cuticle, an epidermis consisting of a single layer of cells, a thick dermis formed of connective tissue and a thin coelomic myoepithelial layer, which provides the longitudinal and circular musculature. The dermis contains an endoskeleton of calcium carbonate components known as ossicles. These are honeycombed structures composed of calcite microcrystals arranged in a lattice. They vary in form, with some bearing external granules, tubercles and spines, but most are tabular plates that fit neatly