Star fish ID help please

[geoff w]

I'm not an underwater photographer (I can barely take recognizable pictures above water), and certainly didn't expect the very nice conditions I had yesterday at Leo Carrillo (15 to 20 ft viz), so didn't bother taking a camera. Lots of chewed up bits of kelp and other debris floating in the water, but not really much small particulate. Toward the outside of the reef, I saw a star fish I had never seen before. It looked like Marine Species Identification Portal : Northern Henricia - Henricia sanguinolenta and one of my dive buddies confirmed the picture was what we saw. Do we have these around here? Is there anything else it could be that looks similar?

A few minutes later, we saw what we thought was an ocean whitefish, which I also hadn't seen at Leo Carrillo before. All in all, a surprisingly nice day for diving

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It might have been a Blood Star, Henricia leviuscula.

 

[drbill]

Henricia leviuscula is occasionally seen out here on the island although I haven't seen one in a while.

 

[geoff w]

Henricia leviuscula is occasionally seen out here on the island although I haven't seen one in a while.

Thanks Phil and Dr Bill for the ID help. Since noticing the star fish withering disease here, I'm always on the lookout for star fish. I haven't really seen any evidence of any here for the past few months, and it seems like the numbers are slowly increasing. I did see one that looked like it had it on Sunday. The Pacific blood star on Sunday was the first one I've ever seen or noticed on any shore dive in Malibu.

 

[drbill]

Although I'm doing just night dives this summer, I'm not noticing sea stars on most of my dives (and am seeing possible signs of sea urchin wasting, or at least mortality possibly due to thermal stress). MY #1 dive buddy Andrea is coming out next week and my son the week after so I'll be doing day dives again and will keep an eye out.