Baby Serpent

sharkman24

Member
I have discovered that my serpent has bad babies, I have about 3 in my tank that i can identify.. How cool is this????Pics to come shortly.
 

sharkman24

Member
I've had the mother about 2 years now, and she just keeps growing her center is now about the size of a Half dollar.
 

ophiura

Active Member
Can you provide a picture of the adult? What color is the adult? Reproduction is quite rare in captivity with larger brittlestars so I would very much like to document it. Are you certain these are not hitch hiker brittlestars, which are incredibly common?
 

sharkman24

Member
The adult is always hiding under the rock so its unlikely that I'll be able to get a pic of it.
I highly doubt that they are hitckhikers due to the fact that the last rock I purchased was well over a year ago. There are at least 3 babie in the tank that I can identify.
 

ophiura

Active Member
But you have to understand that this is unusual - I am very interested even in a picture of the arm...
If the adult reproduced, then you have something that must be a simulateous hermaphrodite (unless you have a male and female) that is a brooder (few larval brittlestars survive the pumps, etc...and again you would need a male and female brittlestar). This is not impossible by any means, but I would like to document it if possible...even an arm tip picture. What color is the adult?
 

ophiura

Active Member
Well, the six legged forms are generally hitch hikers that DO reproduce well (unlike the big guys). They reproduce by splitting. Most brittlestars have 5 arms (probably the big one does) and 3 arms are needed by the brittlestar to properly move. So those species that reproduce by splitting tend to have 6 arms, so that each "half" will have 3 arms to move well. They then regenerate the other 3 (sometimes three arms are shorter). So my guess is that at some point you got a hitch hiker, and it has since split a few times so now they are more evident. Most of these guys stay pretty small overall.
If you have a "macro" brittlestar :) that has 6 arms, then I would REALLY like to see. Few (if any?) of the larger tropical species have 6 arms.
 

sharkman24

Member
Ok well I ll try to get a better pic if I can.
And I'll double ck the arms to be sure of the number, also yesterday sometime my bubble tim anonome split... lots of things happening in this tank,.,LOL
 
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