Night divers spot reddish sea creature with 17 arms in Palau. It’s a new species
Swimming through the shadowy waters off Palau, scuba divers watched life on a coral reef after dark. One reddish sea creature with 17 “feather”-like arms caught their attention — and for good reason.
It turned out to be a new species.
A team of scientists visited “some of the world’s most diverse coral reefs” in Australia and southeast Asia as part of a decades-long effort to document feather stars, a group of marine invertebrates related to but distinct from sea stars, according to a study published June 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.
At most coral reefs, the team encountered a “common” species known as Capillaster multiradiatus, or the many-rayed feather star, on their daytime scuba dives. But off the island nation of Palau, they couldn’t find any of these feather stars during the day.
Instead, the feather stars of Palau came out “exclusively” at night — a significant change in behavior that led some scientists to suspect the nocturnal animals were an undescribed species, the study said.
Intrigued, researchers tracked down several of these nocturnal sea animals during scuba dives, analyzed their DNA and compared their appearances to other known species. Sure enough, the nocturnal feather stars were subtly but consistently distinct.
Researchers realized they’d discovered a new species: Capillaster crypticus, or the cryptic feather star.
Cryptic feather stars have a central body with between 17 and 20 moveable arms coming out of it, the study said. Their longer arms are used for filter feeding while their shorter arms are used for moving around and holding on to the reef.
A photo shows the reddish coloring of the new species. Researchers described it as having “a sort of lacey pattern.”
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Cryptic feather stars “emerged shortly after dusk from daytime hiding places” to extend their arms and feed, the study said. They were found perched atop coral reefs and living at depths of up to 65 feet.
Researchers named the new species after the Latin word for “cryptic” because it was misidentified for years and looks similar to the many-rayed feather star. The new species is “an example of ‘hidden diversity’ among feather star crinoids at some of the most highly diverse sites yet studied.”
So far, cryptic feather stars have been found in Palau and Australia but may be more widespread, the study said.
The new species was identified by its nocturnal behavior, DNA, coloring, skeleton and other subtle physical features, the study said.
The research team included David Meyer, Anne Hoggett, Danwei Huang, Greg Rouse, Lyle Vail, Ying-Hsuan Yen and Charles Messing. The team dedicated the study to Messing, “a colleague and collaborator on the subject of this paper long before he became ill” and died in 2023.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Night divers spot reddish sea creature with 17 arms in Palau. It’s a new species."
