Sea stars may use their arms to keep their central cores cool when high temperatures threaten their survival.
Sylvain Pincebourde at the University of Tours, France, and his colleagues kept ochre sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus, pictured) under conditions that mimicked the sweltering temperatures to which the organisms can be exposed at low tides. Most sea stars died if their core temperatures exceeded 35 °C. Individuals that survived the heating generally had arms that were hotter than their cores, possibly because the creatures reroute body fluids into their central cavities to cool down. When their cores warmed, sea stars shed arms — consistently losing the hottest one first.
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Sea stars shed too-hot arms. Nature 498, 140 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/498140c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/498140c
