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When you wish upon a star, you usually are looking high into the night sky. However, you could wish upon a star that actually lives right here on earth. This star does not send its light across millions of miles of deep space. Nope, this star crawls slowly across the sandy floor of our oceans, and radiates beautiful colors from its rough, leathery skin. You’ll find it in a tide pool or during your visit to the local aquarium. Earth people refer to this heavenly body as a sea star, or starfish.

The starfish is the every-day name that we use to describe 5 orders of 1500 species of invertebrates. You may not know how to classify an invertebrate, but you can probably identify a starfish. Why? Because the starfish has arms that protrude from its body so that it resembles the symbol of a star. You will know that it is an invertebrate, because the starfish cannot possibly house a spine, or vertebrae, in that starry shaped body. Nope, the starfish is composed of more arms than anything else. These arms, usually numbering 5 or 6, radiate from the body, and help the creature to slowly and stiffly move along the ocean floor, searching for food. The arms surround the starfish’s mouth, and help to direct morsels of food therein.

What do starfish feed on, while they are crawling around the vast seas? Not TV dinners, that’s for sure! Starfish are hungry for many things, including bivalves and ocean bottom deposits. They can eat little sea creatures whole, and the bigger items are dealt with by extending their stomachs and digesting the food outside of their bodies! Other starfish pry open bivalves and slide their stomachs in between the two shells. Talk about flexibility. They’ll do anything for a good meal.

Starfish use their finely honed senses of smell, touch and taste to find their prey. Some starfish can sense light, even though they do not have a brain to direct their nervous system. Since they do not taste very good to larger prey, starfish don’t have to worry much about being eaten. Besides, they are not very nutritious, so you won’t see Mom putting one into your lunchbox.

Though it may seem that the starfish’s goal in life is to find and eat food, it is also concerned with reproduction. Most starfish have male and female members of its family. The female deposits the eggs into the water, where the male fertilizes them. Some females then protect the fertilized eggs by attaching the eggs to her underside. However, many starfish have the ability to regenerate lost body parts by themselves, and in some cases, this regeneration becomes a common method of reproduction. In other words, new starfish can grow from the fragment of the arm that was lost. Isn’t that awesome?

So, the next time you are visiting the beach, keep an eye out for one of these stellar sea creatures. When you find one, you can make your very own wish upon a star—starfish, that is!