Acanthaster planci (Class Asteroidea; Order Spinulosida; “crown-of-thorns sea star or starfish”) is a large (up to 70 cm), mobile, multi-armed (7–23) sea star covered in sharp, toxic spines. It feeds almost exclusively on hard corals and is found on coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific. No other reef sea stars remotely resemble its appearance, nor possess comparable life-history traits as a predator on corals.
Crown-of-thorns are prone to population outbreaks, with aggregations of thousands or more adults per hectare not uncommon (Figure 1). Such populations often advance in fronts through coral habitat, leaving formerly luxuriant coral areas dead in their wake. The sea star has a number of life history traits that predisposes these destructive population outbreaks: absence of any equivalent coral predator (little competition for food); a large stomach (that is pushed out through the mouth to digest coral tissue externally); a high fecundity (a mature female can produce some 50...
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Miller, I. (2011). Acanthaster Planci. In: Hopley, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2_169
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