---
title: Palmata Feather Star (Dichrometra palmata)
scientific_name: Dichrometra palmata
common_name: Palmata Feather Star
taxon: Sea lilies
published: 2026-07-27T12:14:04.881Z
updated: 2026-08-15T21:48:55.489Z
tags: Palmata Feather Star, Dichrometra palmata, Sea lilies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-lilies/palmata-feather-star
---

# Palmata Feather Star (*Dichrometra palmata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea lilies (*Crinoidea*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef edges and current-swept corners, perched on coral
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- many feathery arms radiating from a small central body
- gripping legs (cirri) underneath, hooked onto coral
- arms held up into the current in a fan or a bowl
- arm span up to 20 cm

A feather star perched on a coral head with its arms held up into the flow - an echinoderm, related to sea stars and urchins, and the oldest surviving design in the group.

It feeds by filtering. Each arm carries rows of tube feet coated in mucus that catch plankton out of the current and pass it down a groove to the mouth, which faces upward at the center. The animal orients the whole fan across the flow and simply waits.

It also swims, which nobody expects. Detached or disturbed, a crinoid lifts off and moves through open water by raising and lowering its arms in alternating sets, a slow deliberate rowing that looks like something out of deeper time - and then settles and grips again with the hooked cirri underneath.

A feather star is also a habitat: shrimps, squat lobsters, clingfish and brittle stars live among its arms, each matched to the color of its own host. Look at the base of the arms before moving on.

## Also known as

- **English:** Klunzinger's Feather Star
- **French:** Comatule commune
- **Japanese:** Higasa-umishida, ヒガサウミシダ
- **Chinese:** 掌麗羽枝
- **Russian:** Морская лилия Пальмата (или Двухцветная перьевая звезда)
- **TH:** ดาวขนนกหลากสี

## Scientific synonyms

- *Alecto palmata* Müller, 1841
- *Antedon aequipinna* Carpenter, 1882
- *Antedon amboinensis* Hartlaub, 1890
- *Antedon brevicuneata* Carpenter, 1881
- *Antedon conjungens* Carpenter, 1888
- *Antedon gyges* Bell, 1884
- *Antedon imparipinna* Carpenter, 1882
- *Antedon klunzingeri* Hartlaub, 1890
- *Antedon laevicirra* Carpenter, 1881
- *Antedon lepida* Hartlaub, 1890
- *Antedon moorei* Bell, 1894
- *Antedon occulta* Carpenter, 1888
- *Antedon okelli* Chadwick, 1904
- *Antedon palmata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Antedon similis* Carpenter, 1888
- *Antedon subtilis* Hartlaub, 1895
- *Antedon tenera* Hartlaub, 1890
- *Comatula (Alecto) palmata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Dichrometra klunzingeri* (Hartlaub, 1890)
- *Dichrometra tenera* (Hartlaub, 1890)
- *Lamprometra klunzingeri* (Hartlaub, 1890)
- *Lamprometra palmata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Lamprometra palmata gyges* (Bell, 1884)
- *Lamprometra palmata palmata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Lamprometra palmata parmata* (Müller, 1841)

## Range

Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-lilies/palmata-feather-star)*
*Updated: August 15, 2026*