Starfish - Reproduction of 19th century engraving - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Engraving reproduction of: Starfish

Original title Asteridea - Seesterne

Poster of Asterias - Starfish of the class Starfish or Asteroidea (Order Starfish)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Phylum Echinoderms (Echinoderma)
Main class of Pentorchonia (Pentorchonia)
Class of Starfish (Asteridea)
Order of Colasterides

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Asteridea - Starfish :

Starfish (Asteridea) appear in two completely different forms, like most other echinoderms. The immature young animal, the starfish larva (Astrolarva, Fig. 2-4) is very small, a few millimeters, with a bilateral basic shape (bilateral symmetry); its simple organization resembles that of a simple worm, notably a rotifer (Plate 32); like the latter, the starfish larva swims in the sea with the help of small, briskly moving cilia; these are here arranged in long ciliary bands (colored red in Fig. 2-4). In the very young starfish larva (Fig. 2), which has the shape of a slipper, the ciliary band forms a simple ring with a few lateral evaginations; it borders the opening of the slipper, which corresponds to the ventral surface. Later, long, arm-like extensions develop on both sides of the star larva, on which the ciliary band also extends along its entire length (Brachiolaria, Figs. 3, 4). The sexually mature star animal (Astrozoon, Figs. 11, 12) develops from the bilateral larva by a very remarkable metamorphosis (Figs. 5-8); it has a completely different pentaradiate body shape and a much more complex structure; moreover, the adult starfish is more than a hundred times larger and lives by crawling on the seabed. The skin of the adult star animal is heavily calcified and often covered with spines. Only a small part of its internal organs is transferred from the body of the Astrolarva to that of the Astrozoon during the transformation; the greater part of the latter is formed by neoformation.

Species present on the naturalist board of Starfish - Asterias :

• Asterias rubens
• Hymenaster echinulatus
• Pteraster stellifer