Striped Sea Star

By The Marine Detective on October 12, 2023

I found distraction from the darkness by making compiling these photos of one of the most diversely colourful sea star species off our coast – the gobsmackingly beautiful Striped Sea Star.

Note how Nature supports diversity. 💙

Striped Sun Stars (Solaster stimpsoni) can be up to 58 cm across. They most often have 10 arms with a blue line down the centre of each arm. Some individuals are entirely blue.

Whenever I post photos of this species, they create a bit of a sensation. That’s likely because they are astoundingly colourful and usually live in really colourful neighbourhoods too.

But also, I think there is reduced awareness about the species because Striped Sun Stars are not often in the intertidal zone.

Oh, and then there’s that misunderstanding / underestimation of the colour and diversity of life in this cold ocean.

But LOOK!  Look at the diversity in colour of this sea star species and look at the density and colour of the life around them. This is the life off our coast in high current areas.

The diet of Striped Sun Stars includes various species of sea cucumber.

There are 6 species of sea star off our coast that have more than 10 arms. The other 5 many-armed sea star species do not have the blue stripes down the arms. They are Sunflower Stars, Rose Stars, Morning Sun Stars, Northern Sun Stars, Orange Sun Stars. There’s really good information about the diversity of sea stars off our coast on Neil McDaniel’s page at this link.

All photos on this page taken near NE Vancouver Island in the Territory of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw (the Kwak̕wala-speaking Peoples).©Jackie Hildering,