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