Poisonous Starfish

These Crown Of Thorns starfish are native to Hawaii and they eat coral. Often you will see a white patch of coral where the star has eaten the polyps. It may look like coral bleaching but usually you can see the rough edges of the live coral next to the dead coral. These large starfish sometimes get out of control and devastate entire parts of the reef.

Don’t touch these big starfish or you will be sorry!! They have poisonous spines. I laid on one of these 18 inch wide starfish once while shooting a movie of a lobster. My belly stung like heck for hours!

These Crown Of Thorns starfish are native to Hawaii and they eat coral. Often you will see a white patch of coral where the star has eaten the polyps. It may look like coral bleaching but usually you can see the rough edges of the live coral next to the dead coral.

These large starfish sometimes get out of control and devastate entire parts of the reef but usually you may see only one or two on a scuba dive. The big Triton Trumpet eats the Crown Of Thorns Starfish!! This is why we do not want anyone to remove these beautiful shells from the reef.

Here are some pictures of the Crown of Thorns plus one of the Triton’s feeding underwater and one of their shells being sold in a shell shop!

Aloha, Terry