Bat star Bat star The bat star ("Patiria miniata"), also known as a sea bat, webbed star, and broad-disk star, is a species of sea star (also called a starfish) in the family Asterinidae. It typically has five arms, with the center disk of the animal being much wider than the stubby arms are in length. Although the bat star usually has five arms, it sometimes has as many as nine. Bat stars occur in many of colors, including green, purple, red, orange, yellow and brown, either mottled or solid. The bat star gets its name from the webbing between its arms,
Crown-of-thorns starfish starfish larvae in experimental studies gave support for a mechanism for starfish outbreaks: increased terrestrial runoff → increased nutrients denser phytoplankton↑→ better larval survival → increased starfish populations There have been further conformations of these connections, however research by Olson (1987), Kaufmann (2002), and Byrne (2016) suggests terrestrial runoff has little or no impact on larval survival. The conflicting data describing the negligible role of terrestrial agricultural runoff has been described as "an inconvenient study". There is also a flow-on effect in that where there are large starfish populations producing large numbers of larvae, there is likely to be heavy