---
title: Whip Feather Star (Dichrometra flagellata)
scientific_name: Dichrometra flagellata
common_name: Whip Feather Star
taxon: Sea lilies
published: 2026-08-07T11:51:31.120Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:09:46.157Z
tags: Whip Feather Star, Dichrometra flagellata, Sea lilies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-lilies/whip-feather-star
---

# Whip Feather Star (*Dichrometra flagellata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea lilies (*Crinoidea*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Coral rubble and reef edges with moderate current

## How to recognise it

- about twenty long slender arms
- arms often banded light and dark
- cirri gripping rubble rather than live coral
- arm span up to 20 cm

A feather star of about 20 cm (8 in) with roughly twenty long slender arms, frequently banded light and dark along their length. It is close enough to its relatives that identification underwater rests on arm count and proportions rather than color, which varies in all of them.

It favors coral rubble and reef edges where the current runs moderate rather than strong, gripping loose rock with its cirri instead of settling on live coral. Days are spent folded into cover; the arms open after dark. Like all feather stars it can let go and move, and a disturbed animal will crawl away over the rubble on its cirri rather than sit and be handled. Arms break readily and regrow, which is why so many individuals carry a mix of long and short ones - the short arms are the regenerating ones, and counting them gives a rough record of how rough life has recently been.

## Also known as

- **English:** Longarm Feather Star
- **Russian:** Бичевидная перистая звезда

## Scientific synonyms

- *Alecto elongata* Müller, 1841
- *Alecto flagellata* Müller, 1841
- *Antedon elongata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Antedon flagellata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Antedon pulcher* Hartlaub, 1891
- *Comatula elongata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Comatula flagellata* (Müller, 1841)
- *Dichrometra afra* AH Clark, 1912
- *Dichrometra flagellata afra* AH Clark, 1912
- *Dichrometra pulcher* (Hartlaub, 1891)
- *Liparometra multicirra* HL Clark, 1923

## Range

Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania

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