National Museum of Natural Science

This is the smallest sea star in this museum’s collection and is also the smallest sea star in the world, with a diameter of only around 0.5 cm. It mainly inhabits seas where there are coral reefs and you have to look carefully to see it. This small sea star increases its population via asexual reproduction. If one individual is placed in a research aquarium, within a year it will have multipled into hundreds of individuals. Its ability to reproduce is amazing. Through asexual reproduction, the dwarf coral star can rapidly take over a habitat. But, as each individual is an exact copy, there is no genetic variation and, therefore, no evolution.

The smallest sea star, the dwarf coral star - Asterina anomala