#asteroidea

[snototter]

A nine-armed sea star (Luidia senegalensis) in Indian River Lagoon, Florida, USA

by Arthur Anker

[iamthekaijuking]

Long presumed to have no heads at all, starfish may be nothing but

For centuries, naturalists have puzzled over what might constitute the head of a sea star, commonly called a "starfish." When looking at a w

This just in, starfish are a radially symmetrical head with a stomach.

God I love echinoderms

If you told someone that there’s an entire group of animals that develop butt first as embryos are born bilateral but then grow a radially symmetrical head like a cancer in their side that then bursts out and lives as a completely separate organism from its birth form and moves via hydraulic systems…

They wouldn’t believe you. Yet one of the most beloved cartoon characters is one of them.

[harmony-bunny]

Redraw of a screenshot from "SpongeBob and Patrick's Timeline Twist-Up". This one involves Squidina being involved with the classic duo stuck in Rock Bottom. Hopefully they'll all get out safely...

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: etothepii Sherlock trio

Projects 46-48, Binds 64-67, and Binderary Books #s 5,6,&7 Asteroidea (Series) by etothepii Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc (Series)  by etothepii Things you don’t tell me (Series) by etothepii Completed: February 14&15, 2026 Size:  Quarto.  (16,253 words, 136 pages) (20,213 words, 163 pages) (23,174 words, 186 pages)

A trilogy of Sherlock quartos with three stories each.  I distinctly remember reading these fics back on LiveJournal and was bracing myself to try to figure out how to harvest/format from Dreamwidth when I discovered they had been posted to AO3 as well.  Happy days.  Highly recommend, especially if you like crossovers.  The His Dark Materials fusion is delightfully odd and the addition of the Addams family to the Sherlock universe is the perfect explanation for how even keeled Watson can be. Not too much to say about the typesets.  They are meant to look as similar as possible, all using the same fonts and formatting (Bell MT for body and Poor Richard for titles/headers if you’re interested in that minutiae).  I waffled for ages about whether to do the set as quartos or octavos.  Wordcount-wise the smaller size may have made more sense, but I wanted something a little taller, if slimmer, on my shelves.

The aesthetics of the binds themselves were determined by finds at my local creative re-use store when I stumbled upon a pack of fairly plain paper from the early 2010s and a partially used pad of decorative cardstock.  The single sheets made the perfect coordinating set of endpapers for the trio.

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Have you seen the chocolate chip sea star (Protoreaster nodosus)?

I have now

Yes, in photos/videos

Yes, irl

I'm not sure

Voting ended onMar 3, 2025

[every-day-creechur]

Arctic Slimestar Hymenaster pellucidus

Found in Baffin Bay and adjacent waters east to the East Siberian Sea, to western Canadian arctic. Its southernmost limit appears to be north Iceland.

image by Halvard Aas Midtun

[cosmiclion]

Found some old drawings so I'm gonna post them here because why not :D I was so creative back then lmao. Those weird highlights are because the sheet has a plastic cover for protection that I can't remove because it's stuck to the paper and it'd peel parts of it off 😭

Circa 2015.

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Why do starfish always win? Because they're a-head! A new study of starfish genes has revealed that what we thought were arms are actually just extensions of the starfish's head, each containing DNA corresponding to various areas of the brain. This suggests that, at some point in their evolution sea stars had a torso, but lost it and became only disembodied heads. You can read more about this fascinating discovery here!

(Image: The star of the discovery, the bat starfish (Patiria miniata) by Olivia Johnson)

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