Brittlestars (Ophiuroidea)
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of 20 brittle stars and basket-stars (Ophiuroidea) plus several related models. These date from between the 1870s and 2013.
The collection comprises specimens in spirit, several dried specimens of some of the most common British species and a number of glass models. The specimens come from around the British coast, collected by scuba divers as part of surveying work in the 1980s, and from the deep sea, collected in the 1970s by Dr Dietrich L. Burkel on the research vessel RRS Challenger. The glass models of brittle stars were made by Blaschka of Dresden.
About brittle stars and basket-stars
Brittle stars and basket-stars are a class of echinoderms – marine invertebrates – that have five long narrow arms and a small central disc. Brittle stars are very mobile and crawl across the ocean floors scavenging for food. Basket-stars are fixed in one place and filter-feed with highly branched arms. There are around 2,000 species of brittle stars and basket-stars found throughout the world. - Broader term
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