---
title: Wahlberg's Feather Star (Comanthus wahlbergii)
scientific_name: Comanthus wahlbergii
common_name: Wahlberg's Feather Star
taxon: Sea lilies
published: 2026-08-07T11:51:31.125Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:09:46.189Z
tags: Wahlberg's Feather Star, Comanthus wahlbergii, Sea lilies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-lilies/wahlbergs-feather-star
---

# Wahlberg's Feather Star (*Comanthus wahlbergii*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea lilies (*Crinoidea*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 2-30 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef slopes, tucked under coral by day

## How to recognise it

- arms typically yellow-green to olive, sometimes with darker bands
- moderate arm count, roughly twenty to thirty
- arm span about 20 cm
- hides under coral plates by day, exposed at night

A feather star of about 20 cm (8 in) with twenty to thirty arms, usually yellow-green to olive and sometimes darker-banded. Neither the largest nor the smallest of the group here, and like the rest of them colored too variably for that to settle a name on its own.

Days are spent under coral plates and in crevices on reef slopes; the animal comes out at dusk and opens its arms into the current. Feather stars are the oldest surviving branch of the echinoderms - their stalked ancestors, the sea lilies, filled shallow seas long before fish took their modern shape, and the fossil beds of crinoid stems are thick enough in places to be quarried as rock. What crawls on the reef today is the same animal with the stalk abandoned: a crinoid that traded a fixed stem for cirri and the freedom to move to better current.

## Also known as

- **Japanese:** マキエダコアシウミシダ
- **Russian:** Перистая звезда Вальберга

## Scientific synonyms

- *Actinometra simplex* Carpenter, 1888
- *Actinometra trachygaster* Schmeltz, 1869
- *Alecto wahlbergii* Müller, 1843
- *Cenolia (Cenolia) samoana* (AH Clark, 1909)
- *Cenolia (Cenolia) wahlbergi* (Müller, 1843)
- *Comanthus (Comanthus) samoana* AH Clark, 1909
- *Comanthus samoanus* (AH Clark, 1909)
- *Comanthus wahlbergi* (Müller, 1843)
- *Comanthus wahlbergi serratus* (Gislén, 1938)
- *Comanthus wahlbergi tenuibrachia* AM Clark, 1972
- *Comanthus wahlbergi wahlbergi* (Müller, 1843)
- *Comanthus wahlbergii multibrachia* Gislén, 1938
- *Comanthus wahlbergii serratus* (Gislén, 1938)
- *Comanthus wahlbergii tenuibrachia* AM Clark, 1972
- *Comanthus wahlbergii wahlbergi* (Müller, 1843)
- *Comatula orientalis* AH Clark, 1907
- *Comissia hartmeyeri* AH Clark, 1912
- *Comissia ignota* AH Clark, 1911
- *Comissia serrata* Gislén, 1938
- *Commissia hartmeyeri* AH Clark, 1912
- *Commissia ignota* AH Clark, 1911

## Range

Australia, Coral Sea, Durban, Japan, New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-lilies/wahlbergs-feather-star)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*