- Animals
- ›Echinoderms
- ›Sea Stars and Brittle Stars
- ›Sea Stars
- ›Valvatacean Sea Stars
- ›Valvatidan Sea Stars
- ›Asteropseidae
- ›Dermasterias

Leather Star
Dermasterias imbricata
The leather star (Dermasterias imbricata) is a sea star in the family Asteropseidae found at depths to 100 m (328 ft) off the western seaboard of North America. It was first described to science by Adolph Eduard Grube in 1857.
From the article Leather star on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
The leather star has a broad central disc and five plump, short arms which taper broadly from the central disc. The arms have two rows of tube feet and no bordering marginal plates. The upper, aboral, surface is smooth and velvety, made more so by the absence of spines and a light layer of mucous. It is covered with a reticulated pattern in reddish-brown, often with patches of greyish-blue. No pedicellariae are present, but the madreporite can be seen. This starfish can grow to about 30 centimetres (12 in) in diameter and has a distinctive smell that resembles garlic and sulphur.
Range & habitat
The range of the leather star includes the western seaboard of North America from Cook Inlet, Alaska to northern Mexico. It occurs in Puget Sound. It lives in the intertidal zone and in deeper water down to depths of about 100 metres (330 ft). It is found on rocky bottoms and occasionally sandy seabeds.
Wikipedia: “Distribution and habitat”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Dermasterias imbricata in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 63382.