page_title: Patiria pectinifera
section_title: Biology
hierarchical_section_title: Patiria pectinifera / Biology
caption_attribution_description: Asterina pectinifera; Starfish in Japan sea. Inverted specimen showing the underside 日本語: イトマキヒトデ （2004年8月1日兵庫県竹野町にて撮影）
context_page_description: Patiria pectinifera, the blue bat star, is a species of starfish in the family Asterinidae. It is found in the northern Pacific Ocean along the coasts of Japan, China and Russia. It is used as a model organism in developmental biology.
context_section_description: Patiria pectinifera feeds on algae and sea grasses, detritus and small invertebrates. It prefers living on coarse sediment to fine sediment and everts its stomachs over a food item to digest it in situ. 
  Patiria pectinifera may be preyed on by the carnivorous starfish Luidia quinaria. In Peter the Great Gulf, this starfish breeds twice a year, in the autumn and the spring. Females spawn about 500,000 eggs each year.
  Patiria pectinifera has been used as a model organism in developmental biology. The advantages it has for this purpose are that it is common, easy to collect, and easy to maintain in the laboratory. Both adults and larvae are tolerant of a range of conditions and the adults are non-specialist feeders. The chunky body shape makes them easy to handle and wounds heal well; individuals recover easily from surgery and can be used repeatedly for further experiments. The oocytes are large and transparent and remain viable when removed from the gonads. They have been used for studies of oocyte maturation, fertilization, and larval development.
  It has been shown that if the embryo of this starfish is dissociated into its constituent cells, a collection of these cells is capable of re-aggregation into a viable bipinnaria larva. First the external epithelium is formed, then the internal structures develop. After this gastrulation occurs by invagination followed by the development of a mouth. A relaxin-like peptide, previously referred to as “Gonad Stimulating Substance”, has also been found in this starfish. There is evidence that the peptide is involved in reproductive processes and functions via a G protein-coupled receptor, which supports its relatedness to vertebrate relaxins.
caption: Underside of Patiria pectinifera
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