It is usually believed that starfish do not harm a person, but careless “communication” with one of the species of these sea creatures in most cases leads to disastrous consequences. In corals of the Indian and Pacific oceans, there is a large star called acantaster or a crown of thorns.
It belongs to the genus acantasteride and reaches a diameter of up to 50 cm. This species of starfish brings a burning pain to a person from pricking needles during a touch. If the needle gets stuck in the skin, then it breaks off from the body of the star and begins to infect human blood with poisonous secretions.
In the last few years, starfish have become actively multiplying. Because of their excessive appetite, each individual consumes about 6 square meters of coral per year. Scientists suggest that such a rate of increase in numbers is caused by a person through provoked changes in the aquatic ecosystem associated with increased pollution. As a result, programs were carried out to destroy several sections of sea stars with active use of toxins.
It should be noted that the stars of the sea still bring much more useful than harmful. In fact, they play a huge role in the ecology of the planet, and in particular the World Ocean. The starfish heavily utilizes one of the “enemies” of the ecosystem – carbon dioxide, which every year fills our atmosphere more and more.
Each year, starfish collectively destroy about 2% of the Earth’s carbon dioxide, and this is an extremely large figure within the whole planet. Another useful role of sea stars is the cleaning of the seabed from the carrion, weak and sick creatures of the seabed, and also from the remains of dead ocean organisms.
Sea stars are the most beautiful creatures not only of the ocean, but of the entire planet as a whole. They have appeared long ago and have not been fully studied by scientists. Divers, who dive in various warm seas, often manage to admire the stars of the seabed, and also bring these beauties through the pictures before us.
