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
Kina (animal) can be entirely eaten away, leaving bare rocks, also known as Kina Barrens. Larval stages can feed on different species of unicellular algae in a size range between 5 and 50 µm (MacEdward and Miner 2007). Molluscs such as the cymatiid gastropods "Charonia capax" and "C. rudicunda", starfish, and benthic feeding fishes can feed on individuals of "E. chloroticus" (Dix 1970a). The most important predators are the eleven-armed sea star, "Coscinasterias calamaria", the seven-armed prickly starfish, "Astrostole scabra", and the spiny lobster, "Jasus edwardsii" (Andrew and MacDiarmid 1991, Barker 2007). "Evechinus chloroticus" has an annual breeding cycle (Dix 1970b). It