Of all the strange creatures that keep their own secret lives in the waters of Southern Australia, Erskin\u2019s Basket Star is up there in the realm of \u2018oh wow\u2019!<\/p>\n
As a starfish, and more specifically, a \u2018brittle star\u2019 they resemble some weird brain-like structure. <\/p>\n
About the size of a pair of clenched fists they hide their true strangeness, a sight rarely seen, when at night and in strong currents they completely unfold that intricate structure in a vast feeding web.<\/p>\n
I have never seen a basket star feeding. A logistically challenging night dive combining both strong currents and remote locations would be required. Something I am up for but not to be undertaken lightly.<\/p>\n
On this dive off of Troubridge Point, Edithburgh we found three of the fascinating creatures, all bundled up and waiting for the cover of night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of all the strange creatures that keep their own secret lives in the waters of Southern Australia, Erskin\u2019s Basket Star is up there in the realm of \u2018oh wow\u2019! As a starfish, and more specifically, a \u2018brittle star\u2019 they resemble some weird brain-like structure. About the size of a pair of clenched fists they hide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2873,2874,173,2875,113,227,135,25,112,115,2868,197],"class_list":["post-8722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-astroboaeernae","tag-basketstar","tag-blackandwhite","tag-brittlestar","tag-diving","tag-edithburgh","tag-monochrome","tag-photography","tag-scuba","tag-southaustralia","tag-troubridgepoint","tag-underwater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8724,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8722\/revisions\/8724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}