Henricia oculata

Blood-star fish

   Henricia oculata is a starfish of 10 to 20 cm in diameter. It has five long and rigid cylindrical tapering arms. Its surface is smooth, of variable colour, purple to orange with sometimes red spots. It lives on sand, gravels, stones and rocks and feeds on sponges.
It is found from surface to 100 m deep in the Atlantic Ocean down to the Bay of Biscay, in the English channel, the North Sea and the Western-Baltic Sea.

Close species :

 Henricia sanguinolenta is a species very similar to H. oculata but their distributions are different: H. sanguinolata is only a circumartic species.

Classification

 (source : European Register of Marine Species)

• Echinodermata [Phylum]
• Asterozoa [Subphylum]
• Stelleroidea [Class]
• Asteroidea [Subclass]
• Spinulosida [Order]
• Echinasteridae [Family]
• Henricia oculata (Pennant, 1777)

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Authors

Top photograph :
© Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat. Published with author's kind permission : 
Henricia oculata, Iles Glénan, South-Brittany, West of France. Depth 20 meters.
Bottom photograph : © Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat. Published with author's kind permission : 
Henricia oculata, Blood-star fish. Iles Glénan, South-Brittany, West of France. Depth 18 meters
Text :  Anne Bay-Nouailhat © 2005-2017.
Translation :  Anne Bay-Nouailhat © 2007-2017.

How to cite this page in publications

Bay-Nouailhat A., November 2005, Description of Henricia oculata, Available on line at http://www.european-marine-life.org/30/henricia-oculata.php, consulted on 20 August 2017.
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