Starfish disintegrate after death. Only the ossicles and spines of the animal are likely to be preserved, making remains hard to locate. With their appealing symmetrical shape, starfish have played a part in literature, legend, design and popular culture. They are sometimes collected as curios, used in design or as logos, and in some cultures, despite possible toxicity, they are eaten. Most starfish have five arms that radiate from a central disc, but the number varies with the group. Some species have six or seven arms and others have 10–15 arms. The Antarctic "Labidiaster annulatus" can have over fifty. Having descended
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