Image courtesy of Matthew McHenry and Eva Kanso
Joel Kontinen
Starfish feet are coordinated purely through mechanical loading, enabling the animals to bounce rhythmically along the seabed without a central nervous system.
How do starfish move? It’s not by using their feet, although they do have small feet
just under their belly, and they have no brains.
But they have been given intelligently designed little feet and a thing that is like a central
nervous system.
“Starfish coordinate hundreds of feet to hop about –
and they do it without a brain. A new understanding of how they manage this
could inspire underwater exploration robots that work on the same principles.
The marine invertebrates, also known as sea stars,
lift their bodies off the ground with their tiny tubular feet to move across
underwater surfaces like rocks and sand. “[The feet are] almost like
mini-organisms, all sort of attached to the same body – and you’ve got hundreds
of them,” says the one who published this, “
Surce:
Christa Lesté-Lasserre,
2024, Starfish have hundreds of feet but no brain – here's how they move | New Scientist 16 April.
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