Starfish
Common Starfish
Asterias rubens
Asterias rubens Linnaeus, 1758 · Asteriidae WoRMS 123776
Reference photos
Tap a photo to enlarge.
The commonest starfish around Britain and Ireland. It has five arms, broad at the base and tapering to blunt tips, with a definite line of small white spines down the centre of each arm and none of the big spine rows the spiny starfish carries. Usually orange or pale brown, sometimes violet, and up to 52 cm across, though 10 to 30 cm is normal. Larger animals feel soft and floppy. Look for it on rock, gravel and coarse sand, and above all on beds of mussels and barnacles, from the shore down to 650 m.
Depth
Intertidal down to depths of 650 m
Size
Up to 52 cm in diameter, commonly 10-30 cm
Habitat
Bedrock, gravel and coarse sand from the shore to the open seabed, and above all beds of mussels and barnacles
Behaviour
A slow-crawling seabed predator and scavenger, usually solitary but sometimes massing in dense feeding aggregations
Diet
I eat
- Bivalve molluscs, prised open with the tube feet and digested by turning the stomach out into the shell
- Polychaete worms, other echinoderms and the occasional small crustacean, all taken alive
- Carrion, scavenged opportunistically: damaged and displaced bivalves, gastropods, crustaceans and echinoderms
Eats me
- The common sun star, a predatory starfish this animal turns and moves away from when it detects one
- Young Atlantic cod, recorded taking Asterias starfish among their seabed prey off Scotland
Where you'd find it
Found all around Britain and Ireland, so you have a chance of seeing it anywhere on the coast.
Sources
Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.
Asterias rubens - BIOTIC (Biological Traits Information Catalogue) species record
BIOTIC, Marine Life Information Network / Marine Biological Association of the UK
WebCC BY-NC-SA 4.0link checked 2026-08-30
Asterias rubens - Marine Life Encyclopedia
National Museums Northern Ireland, Encyclopedia of Marine Life of Britain and Ireland (2016)
Weblink checked 2026-08-30
Common starfish (Asterias rubens)
Marine Life Information Network, Marine Biological Association of the UK
MarLINlink checked 2026-08-30
Spiny starfish (Marthasterias glacialis)
Marine Life Information Network, Marine Biological Association of the UK
MarLINlink checked 2026-08-30
Asterias rubens Linnaeus, 1758
World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS Editorial Board)
TaxonomyCC BY 4.0link checked 2026-08-30
Name Common Starfish in a clip to add it to your collection.