A firm five-armed sea star with a granular surface, on rock and rubble in the open.
To about 30 cm. Five stout arms, lavender to brown, covered in yellow-green spots, with a clear unspotted line running down the centre of each arm.
The other eastern Pacific ophidiasterid has slenderer arms and a single pale stripe down the middle of each on blue-grey, rather than a spotted ground.
One to a hundred and thirty metres, at about a fifth of surveyed sites and averaging three per transect. Harmless.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.