An asteroid makes its appearance

This is a placeholder post, mostly. It's been a busy week. The spring tides just ended, and I took advantage of them to drive north and collect for a project or three. I have lots of pictures to show off, and a couple of topics rolling around in my head for a future post. But this little guy is just too cute not to share. It's the first echinoderm on the blog! (If echinoderms are your favorite phylum, check out The Echinoblog. If you have a favorite phylum, you're probably an invertebrate biologist, even if you don't know it yet.)

A small sea star, found in Massachusetts. It's in the class Asteroidea in the phylum Echinodermata, a.k.a. an asteroid, hence the title of the post. Photo credit A. Cahill.