Talk:Crown-of-thorns starfish

Information
- The information given on this page is to vague and a bit confusing. Take this part of the article for instance "Some divers kill these predators by injecting the starfish's own stomach acid into each of their many legs". That's all that is said on the topic CoF starfish murder. Why there is no mention as to why "divers" are killing them, how is it legal, how do they obtain the "stomach acid", what they use to inject them with, is more even confusing than why this unnecessary single line is there to begin with. References anyone? -

I'm having trouble finding the species featured on "Planet Earth" by the BBC, which grows up to a metre in diameter! Thus knocking COT starfish off the "Biggest Starfish" throne. It was the called the sunstar but I can't find a single article!

''The crown of thorns can grow from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a dinner plate. An exceptionally large crown of thorns can grow to be the size of a car tire. Divers kill these predators by injecting their own stomach acid into each of their many legs.If even one leg is missed the sea star can live on.Before overpopulation, crown of thorns kept the fast growing coral from overpowering the slower growing coral. Now it destroys coral mercilessly.''

I'm having a hard time believing the part about the stomach acid. If someone can find a reliable source for this, go ahead and put it back in. Dave6 07:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't originally add this information, but it was all taken from the 2004 program, Predators of the Great Barrier Reef. It just aired again on The Science Channel, and I watched and verified the info, including the part about the poison used being the same poison the animal uses to digest its prey. I put the above text back into the article and cited it. -Artificial Silence 21:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * User 74.134.241.176 deleted the now cited text. "sorry for such a large deletion, but what i deleted needs to be re-written and also flushed-out in order to be intelligible or useful" [sic]. Text is both intelligible and useful, and if it needs rewritten, there is no reason it cannot stay in the article. I have no idea what he or she means by "flushed-out". Artificial Silence 03:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've heard this is true, they used to kill them by cutting them up, or putting them through a shredder, but they regrew from the pieces. I don't have a source for the info. 203.143.238.107 06:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't find any references for the removed section. This document Controlling Crown-of Thorns Starfish explains techniques for killing these animals. Injection with poison can be done in less than a minute, so I assume you don't have to inject each leg. Also, I doubt they would survive a shredder, but the document linked here explains why they don't normally cut them up to kill them. --MattWright (talk) 17:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I found a paper about the effectiveness of dry acid as well as wet acid injections in managing crown of thorns starfish— it does not however seem to be stomach acid since the starfish belongs to a family of starfish known for eating through eversion of the stomach. The paper can be found here: http://www.gov.mu/portal/sites/ncb/moa/farc/amas2003/pdf/p4.pdf. It should also be worth mention that starfish lack a formal brain and are known to have clusters of ganglia; generally most animals in similar anatomy (such as sea cucumbers, flat worms and terresterial worms) are known to reproduce asexually through splitting. The reason for explaining this is that it states in the paper that seperated parts from the starfish can spawn new starfish due to their digestive and cognitive physiology.

Genetic Studies -- Out of Place?
The "Genetic studies" section reads more like a scientific literature review instead of an encyclopedia article. If it is going to be kept, at a minimum I would recommend putting it much further down the page. It is just too specialized in my opinion to belong near the top of the page.

Potential source
"Well known professor of biology and history, Jan Sapp in his book  What is Natural? A Coral Reef Crisis , talks about the entire story of how the outbreak of the crown of thorn starfish (COTS) was first discovered on Green Island. He analyses all issues associated with COTS controversy, from Australian politics to the Great Barrier Reef ecology."

I removed that bit from the article, as it sounds like a good source, but as written doesn't contribute much to the article. --MattWright (talk) 04:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

GBMA
The GBMA link recently referenced to has some good details, if anyone else wants to leech info out of it, it would be great. I make no promises to do so.--ZayZayEM (talk) 00:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

That should be GBRMPA.203.220.104.243 (talk) 08:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was page moved. Skomorokh  08:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Crown-of-Thorns Starfish → Crown-of-thorns starfish — Remove caps. --Geronimo20 (talk) 04:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Early 2012 improvements
I am working (slowly)through the article seekng to give it more references. Having spent a number of years researching the starfish, I plan to keep the text more straightforward. There are sections, such as the lifecycle and its importance in population fluctuations, that I would hope to add. JSLUCAS75 (talk) 05:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a monotypic genus?
Currently, Acanthaster is a redirect to Acanthaster planci, which is included in Category:Monotypic animal genera. In light of Acanthaster brevispinus, should this be changed? Melchoir (talk) 08:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

More to come
Thank you for your comment. I am slowly working my way through A. planci and A. brevispinus - learning as I go. In population genetics studies the latter shows up distinct from A. planci at least for the latter's populations across the Pacific. I have, however, hybridised the species to F1 and F2 hybrids but genetic introgression breaks down at the F2 stage. So there is the fascinating situation of sympatric, sibling species not fully genetically isolated, but also isolated by their respective habits. There is literature on A. brevispinus but its sibling is so prominent that it gets overlooked. More to come, butAcanthaster is not monospecific.JSLUCAS75 (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay! I've removed the category, broken out Acanthaster into its own stub article, and created Acanthasteridae as a redirect. Melchoir (talk) 07:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Starfish threaten Great Barrier Reef
A story in the BBC is blaming Crown-of-thorns starfish for the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef*. Does this infrmation belong in this article? XOttawahitech (talk)
 * http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26183209

This is the BBC world service ... "Boys Botties Coveters." When Jamie Oliver and his chum sent their great idea to Nature the editor sent it straight back saying "sorry old darling, this is just of local interest. It's not British coral." Science published it a few weeks later as their cover article. If you are a POM, please remove your imbecile contribution as the article is much too long already. This article has been written by the usual load of bio-dicks. Please ensure it's clear that COTS have NO natural predators. The cause of outbreaks is UNKNOWN. It *MAY* be caused by juveniles being re-deposited in regenerated areas by re-circulation of oceanic eddies.203.220.104.243 (talk) 08:20, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Wait…….can Crown of Thorns starfish eat up to 10 square kilometres a year? Epsr (talk) 06:45, 16 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The article says 6 square meters IAmNitpicking (talk) 20:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

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Coral loss numbers either wrong or very confusing
Regarding "Because of this, species abundance in coral reef fish communities was estimated to be greatest at approximately 20% coral cover. Coral loss >20%, however, typically resulted in a decline in abundance of species in coral reef fish communities."

Does "coral loss" mean "loss from 100% coverage"? If so, then "loss >20%" would mean coverage <80% and, presumably, the *previous* sentence should read "80% coral coverage" (rather than"20%").

If coral loss means something *other than* "loss from 100% coverage," then that must be explained, else there's no way to comprehend this paragraph.

--WikiAlto (talk) 02:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I deleted basically all of this passage for being uncited and representing the results of a study, not an overall truth about crown-of-thorns stars. To clarify your question, the phrase "coral loss" should have also read as "coral cover". †Basilosauridae  ❯❯❯Talk  22:24, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. WikiAlto (talk) 10:27, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Speed and movement
I believe that a Crown of Thorns starfish can go up to the speed of 20 metres per hour. Epsr (talk) 06:38, 16 June 2022 (UTC)