Thorn Starfish

The crown-of-thorns starfish is an unusually large starfish and can grow to more than 1 m in diameter. It has up to 21 arms, with the entire upper surface of its body covered in long venomous spines. The starfish can move up to 20m in an hour. It occurs at tropical and subtropical latitudes from the Red Sea and the east African coast across the Pacific Ocean, across the Indian Ocean to the west coast of Central America. It occurs where coral reefs or hard coral communities occur in this region.

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