Brittlestars, Ophiuroidea, Bali, Indonesia

Bali Brittlestars (Ophiuroidea)

This page links to photos of ophiuroids (brittlestars) we saw on several dive trips to Bali, Indonesia. We did not make a special effort to find and photograph brittlestars, so these pages represent only a small fraction of the species that are sure to be there. Many of our identifications are tentative. Members of this group appear to be quite variable and references to living specimens are slim. Descriptions in the scientific literature have been largely based on anatomical details such as the shapes and arrangement of the hard plates and spines that make up body, details that are hard to distinguish without having the animal in hand or under a good dissecting microscope. We welcome corrections at uwkwaj@yahoo.com.

Click on a thumbnail below to bring up a page with larger photos and information about that species; for variable species, several different thumbnails may load the same page.

Cryptopelta longibrachialis	Euryale sp.	Gorgonocephalidae spp.
Macrophiothrix martensi	Macrophiothrix nereidina	Macrophiothrix rhabdota
Macrophiothrix sp. 1	Ophiactis savignyi	Ophiarachna delicata
Ophiarachnella maracantha	Ophiarachnella cf snelliusi	Ophiarachnella sp. 1
Ophiarachnella sp. 2	Ophiolepis superba	Ophiolepis superba
Ophiomastix flaccida	Ophionereis? sp. 1	Ophiopsila polyacantha
Ophiopsila? sp. 1	Ophiopteron elegans	Ophiopteron? sp. 1
Ophiothela mirabilis	Ophiothrix purpurea	Ophiothrix sp. 1
Ophiothrix sp. 2	Ophiothrix sp. 3	Ophiothrix sp. 4
Ophiotrichidae sp. 1	Ophiuroidea sp. 1	Ophiuroidea sp. 2
Ophiuroidea sp. 3	Ophiuroidea sp. 4	Ophiuroidea sp. 5
Ophiuroidea sp. 6	Ophiuroidea sp. 7	Ophiuroidea sp. 8