Basket star
suborder of echinoderms
The Euryalina are a suborder of brittle stars, which includes large species with either branching arms (called "basket stars") or long and curling arms (called "snake stars"). It is sometimes listed as the order Euryalida.
Characteristics
Many of the species in this order have characteristic repeatedly branched arms (a shape known as "basket stars", which includes most Gorgonocephalidae and two species in the family Euryalidae), while the other species have very long and curling arms, and go rather by the name of "snake stars" (mostly abyssal species). Many of them live in deep sea habitats or cold waters, though some basket stars can be seen at night in shallow tropical reefs. Most young basket stars live on a specific type of coral. In the wild, they may live up to 35 years. They weigh up to 5 kilograms (11 lb). Like other echinoderms, basket stars lack blood and achieve gas exchange via their water vascular system.
The basket stars are the largest ophiuroids, with Gorgonocephalus stimpsoni measuring up to 70 cm in arm length with a disk diameter of 14 cm.
Systematics and phylogeny
The fossil record of this group is rather poor and only dates back to the Carboniferous.
The public source identifies “Basket star” as suborder of echinoderms. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Basket, star and suborder.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q783236. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Basket star” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.