Is a starfish an animal or a plant? The answer is here

Starfish are mainly distributed on the sandy seabed or reefs in shallow waters around the world, and they are quite familiar to us. So is a starfish an animal or a plant?

1. Is a starfish an animal or a plant?

A starfish is an echinoderm. However, we know far too little about its ecology. A starfish does not look like an animal, and judging from its appearance and slow movements, it is hard to imagine that a starfish is actually a voracious carnivore; it also plays an extraordinary and important role in the marine ecosystem and biological evolution.

2. What food do starfish eat?

The starfish is a carnivore that mainly preys on slow-moving marine creatures such as shellfish, sea urchins, crabs and sea anemones. The starfish is a class of the phylum Echinodermata, divided into the two families Asterinidae and Goniasteridae, and is mainly distributed on the sandy seabed or reefs in shallow waters around the world. The starfish is a voracious carnivore, but although its movements cannot be as agile and swift as those of a shark, its main prey are some slower-moving marine animals, such as shellfish, sea urchins, crabs and sea anemones. When hunting, it often adopts a slow, circuitous strategy, gradually approaching its prey, catching the prey with the tube feet on its arms and wrapping its whole body around it, then spewing its stomach out through its mouth and using digestive enzymes to dissolve the prey outside its body and absorb it.

A starfish looks like a plant, but it is actually an animal!