Brooding Snake Star

This species is luminescent with a greenish light.

Hermaphrodite, possibly self-fertilising, viviparous. May-September?

Description: Arm length to 15 mm, disc diamter to 2.5 mm. Disc with obvious scales and with a pair of D-shaped radial shields, half the disc radius in length, twice as long as wide, contiguous. Three oral papillae on each side of the jaw. Aboral arm plates wider than long, distal margin convex. Three arm spines, as long as the segment. Two tentacle scales. Disc colour mottled bluish-grey and pink, the distal part of the radial shields standing out as a bright spot surrounded by darker colour. Arms marked with darker spots. Habitat: lower eulittoral on the underside of stones and among seaweed, and deeper on sand, mud and among seagrasses. Also recorded in SE Arabia, W India, Pakistan, East Indies, north Australia, Philippine, South Pacific Is. and Hawaiian Is. (Clark & Rowe, 1971); Australia (Kalk (1958) and Rowe & Gates (1995)); Lakshadeep (India) in Sastry (1991). General distribution: tropical Indo-Pacific in Kalk (1958); circumglobal (northeastern North America, northern Europe, South Africa, new Zealand, Indo-Pacific Ocean), depth range 0-500 m. (Rowe & Gates, 1995); temperate and tropical waters worldwide (Richmond, 1998). Ecology: benthic, inshore, continental shelf, continental slope (Rowe & Gates, 1995).

Arctic to Florida; Alaska to S. California

Cosmopolitan in temperate and warm temperate seas

Intertidal to more than 200 m depth. Common along algae in tidepools and damp places , and under stones in gravel, from aboout mid-tide level down, all round the British Isles; occasional offshore among gravel and shells. Cosmopolitan in temperate and in warm seas, but A. squamata is probably a species complex, the individual species distinguishable by molecular methods only (Le Gac et al., 2004)

Found from the intertidal zone to 828 m depth, often with tunicates, prefers rock, algae covered and gravel substrate.

Known from seamounts and knolls