sea stars

(Newser) - "This thing was as common as a robin," Cornell's Drew Harvell tells the Atlantic of the sunflower sea star. No more. The creature that once thrived off the West Coast was decimated along with other starfish species by a disease that surfaced with a vengeance around 2013....

(Newser) - Starfish are making a comeback on the West Coast, four years after a mysterious syndrome killed millions of them. From 2013 to 2014, Sea Star Wasting Syndrome hit sea stars from British Columbia to Mexico. The starfish would develop lesions, then disintegrate, their arms turning into blobs of goo. The...

(Newser) - Scientists think they finally know what causes sea star wasting syndrome, the disease that's killing off starfish in massive numbers. In a new study , researchers from a number of universities have linked the devastating disease—which causes starfish to rip off their own arms and dissolve into piles of...

(Newser) - A mysterious disease that has been claiming the lives of sea stars up and down the US, Canadian, and Mexican coasts since last summer has now wiped out as much as 60% of the populations of purple ochre sea stars being watched in Oregon—populations that as of April had...