Brisingids are deep-sea dwelling asteroids. They usually have many (6-16) long, attenuated arms which are used in suspension feeding. The Brisingida contains about 100 species in 17 genera and 6 families. A preliminary phylogeny for this order has been produced by Mah (1998).
From Knott, 2004.
The Brisingids are deep-sea-dwelling starfish in the order Brisingida.[1][2]
These starfish have between 6 and 18 long, attenuated arms which they use for suspension feeding.[3] Other characteristics include a single series of marginals, a fused ring of disc plates, the lack of actinal plates, a spool-like ambulacral column, reduced abactinal plates, and crossed pedicellariae.[4] They are 40 times the size of disk radius and have 7–20 flexible spiny arms.[5]
Brisingida occur in a number of deep-sea locations, particularly in the Caribbean and New Zealand.[6]
This type of species are found of varying size especially in the eastern Pacific Ocean at a depth of 1,820–2,418 m.[5]
The Brisingida contain two families, with 18 genera:[2]
