Chocolate chip sea star
Amazing fact
The chocolate chip sea star licks microorganisms and algae from the seafloor surface.
新潟市水族館 マリンピア日本海
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The chocolate chip sea star licks microorganisms and algae from the seafloor surface.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Chocolate chip sea star
- Scientific name
- Protoreaster nodosus
- Japanese name
- コブヒトデ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Asteroidea
- Order
- Valvatida
- Family
- Oreasteridae
- Genus
- Protoreaster
A large sea star found from Amami, the Ryukyu Islands and the Ogasawara Islands southward across the Indo-West Pacific.
How the Chocolate chip sea star lives
It is often found on sand and mud where seagrasses grow. It can shed an arm to escape a predator. A lost arm may grow back over time.
新潟市水族館 マリンピア日本海Mote Marine Laboratory & AquariumBasic data
- Range
- Indian Ocean and western Pacific south of Amami, Ryukyu Islands, and Ogasawara Islands
Where the Chocolate chip sea star has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- コブヒトデ
- 简体中文
- 原瘤海星
- 繁體中文
- 朱古力海星
- Français
- Etoile de mer à cornes
- Deutsch
- Knotiger Walzenseestern
- Português (Brasil)
- Estrela-gotas-de-chocolate
- Italiano
- Stella marina cornuta
- ไทย
- ดาวหนามดำแดง
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — コブヒトデChecked: 2026-11-04
- 新潟市水族館 マリンピア日本海 — コブヒトデChecked: 2026-11-07
- Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium — Chocolate chip sea starChecked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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