The Brisingids are deep-sea-dwelling starfish in the order Brisingida.

Description

These starfish have between 6 and 16 long, attenuated arms which they use for suspension feeding. Other characteristics include a single series of marginals, a fused ring of disc plates, the lack of actinal plates, a spool-like ambulacral column, reduced abactinal plates, and crossed pedicellariae. They are 40 times the size of disk radius and have 7–20 flexible spiny arms.

Distribution

Brisingida occur in a number of deep-sea locations, particularly in the Caribbean and New Zealand. This type of species are found of varying size especially in the eastern Pacific Ocean at a depth of 1,820–2,418 m.

Taxonomy

The Brisingida contain two families, with 18 genera: