Starfish Ripping Off Own Arms

Scientists are still trying to figure out why starfish are dying in massive numbers, turning into what one taxonomist described as "goo piles." The latest news on the die-off is similarly disturbing: One biology professor studied sea stars suffering from what is being called "sea star wasting syndrome," and he tells PBS the starfish first twist their arms into knots, then literally "[start] ripping themselves apart," he says. "The arms just crawl away from the particular body," crawling in opposite directions until they tear off; the sea star's insides then pour out, and the arms never regenerate, as they would in a healthy starfish.

But scientists still don't know what's behind the deaths, tens of thousands of which have been reported up and down the West Coast as well as along parts of the East Coast. All sorts of theories have been advanced, Jefferson Public Radio reports: low oxygen levels, environmental toxins from local runoff, even radiation or tsunami debris from the Fukushima disaster. Scientists see all of those as unlikely suspects, though, since a larger variety of sea life and a wider range of locations would have been impacted. Other potential culprits include climate change, ocean acidification, or a foreign pathogen that came in on a ship. New experiments are looking into the possibility of infectious agents, and scientists are hoping to have an answer within a few months. (More die-off stories.)