I don’t have many things that drive me up the wall. Sure, those inflatable tube men, with the wildly flapping arms you see outside car dealerships are one of those things. People not saying ‘bless you’ when I sneeze inappropriately loudly, is another. And the third and final, and amongst the others, the most minor of infractions, is when people call sea stars ‘starfish’.

I get it, we all grew up in a world where these invertebrates were lumped in with fish, but trust me, they are such interesting animals and there’s loads of species to be found locally so you won’t need to look up when you’re wanting to do some star gazing.

Sea stars are echinoderms (which means ‘spiny skin’) along with sea urchins, sea cucumbers and brittlestars. They have a flexible, internal calcareous skeleton, which explains how I have watched as a bright red, knobbly granular sea star squeezed its way out of a tiny gap in the rocks, one arm at a time. You might also see others almost standing up, arms entwined or clambering over each other. If you’re willing to sit and just watch, you might be surprised by just how active they are.

In most cases sea stars eat by extruding their stomachs out of their body, and onto their prey of choice and they have impeccable taste, eating mussels, worms, crabs, fish and sometimes other sea stars. The food is partially digested this way, taking up to several hours, before the stomach is pulled back up into the body where the process is finished. Let’s just hope humans don’t adopt this unique way of eating.

If you spot an eleven-armed sea star, firstly don’t let the name fool you. They generally have up to 14 arms and you might notice some are significantly smaller than others.

These animals can sever a limb to escape a predator, which they can later regrow, a very handy skill indeed, but they also reproduce asexually by splitting themselves up the middle, which sounds a lot less fun than the traditional method. The two halves then both grow additional limbs and become two separate animals.

Carpet sea stars are a little different in that they are viviparous: they give birth to live young and that’s why you often see smaller sea stars around the adult ones. Pretty incredible for a creature that has a vascular system that uses water instead of blood and eye spots instead of eyes.

So next time you’re looking into local rock pools, don’t forget to give the sea stars some love. With the huge diversity of shapes, sizes and colours, I guarantee you’ll leave with stars in your eyes.