Talk:Starfish

Sea star vs starfish

Beginning this page with "the talking sea star(more correctly known as sea stars as they are only very distantly related to fish)...", though literally true, inadvertently gives the impression that there actually is a closer relation between starfish and fish than there really is. Saying members of two different phyla are related at all is senseless unless you're referring to the relationship that all living things share in a common ancestry. They are probably less "related" to fish than we are to insects. I think I would mind it less if one were to say about seahorses that they are "only very distantly related to horses" because there's not chance for confusion. But in the layman's mind, often all "seafood" are some kind of fish. Why perpetuate the ignorance? I suggest changing this sentence to" "Starfish (more correctly known as sea stars as they are not related to fish)". PSF--207.59.160.2 13:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This page was earlier at sea star, and claimed that starfish was an incorrect synonym. These things aren't fish, but that doesn't make the term incorrect as such - compare with jellyfish. Also, the terms differ slightly in scope - starfish is sometimes used to include brittle stars, and sea star isn't - but I guess this difference isn't quite so common as I thought. I think starfish is the more common term, so I've moved the page here, but even if it isn't, it shouldn't be called wrong. are sea stars vetebrates are invertebrates?because i have to do a school project and ur page dont tell me -love always- me!!!!!!!!!!!

Well if you go to an aquarium they're careful to call them seastars" and "jellies". We should at the very least note in the article that they're not fish. -- Loren

)

To those who defend the name seastar and protest, "but they aren't fish!": recall that neither are they stars. We are complicit in misnomer.

   Along with this, jellyfish are not only not fish, but they are not jelly either. Also, a koala bear isn't a bear.

They aren't astronomical stars, but they are geometric stars.

   Marine biologists consider "starfish" a deprecated name. Of course, it is a common name, and therefore should *be in wikipedia, but redirected to "sea star", not the other way around. Using "sea star" consistently in the article would also be good. You can argue whether the deprecation is silly, but it is real. Let's make the official name "sea star" (assuming we don't want Asteroidea). It makes the biologists happier, and doesn't upset the average person too much. user:nereocystis 22 Nov, 2004.

"fish" used to refer to many creatures which live in the water, which is probably the source for starfish. This use of "fish" is uncommon today, and is another argument for preferring "sea star" over "starfish". From 1913 Webster:

       A name loosely applied in popular usage to many animals of diverse characteristics, living in the water. "Starfish" may be more common then "sea star" and "seastar", according to a google search, but "sea star" should be used.

It seems that the comments on this page prefer "sea star". Would anyone seriously object to making this the standard? user:nereocystis 3 Dec 2004.

I expect to change "starfish" to "sea star" in one week, unless there is objection. Nereocystis 09:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Done. Now does anyone object to moving the article to 'sea star' and have 'starfish' redirect to 'sea star'? Nereocystis 01:02, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Google test: Sea star gets 11,900,000; starfish only gets 1,240,000. Tony Jin 04:26, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Sea star gets 11 900 000 without quotation marks, but by the 600th entry or so there are pages that don't mention the two words together. "Sea star" gets 195 000, and "sea stars" gets 84 500, considerably less than "starfish".

However, sea star is still preferred among scientists as a common name. I should provide a reference on this, but I don't have it yet. That is why many of us prefer sea star. There are 143,000 seastar references in google.Nereocystis 23:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Preferred among scientists? I love it when folks make up their own facts to bolster their argument. A search on PubMed reveals this not to be the case.

Sea star vs starfish revisited

Scientists are well within their rights to redefine scientfic terms as they see fit but for an encyclopaedia to try tell me (and millions of others, see Google) that a word is "wrong" and that I should use another, is ludicrous.

I would like to see this issue brought back up for discussion. The Oxford English Dictionary makes the point that it are not in the business of defining the language but recording it. Is wikipedia's role so different? I would like to suggest a rewriting. The redirect from starfish to sea star is disturbing in that it feels like one is being, figuratively speaking, slpped on the hand. I also find it odd that the page is spotted with both terms and that the Resources section seems to point to sites that primarily use either starfish or Asteroidea.

When did it become so important that common names be scientifically accurate? Why have starfish been singled out? Are we now expected to move on and rename other animals and plants? What about shellfish? Shouldn't we at least point out that sea stars are not stars? It seems odd that we're worried about what some marine biologists may think but not what astronomers (or mathematicians, if you wish to follow that ridiculous geometry argument) think. Sorry, bad joke. But isn't this whole issue a bit silly?

A minority have decided we shouldn't use a word any longer. Why? Are they scared that the younger generation are too stupid to understand biological differences? What would be the logical result if we followed this path? Are we to rid our language of simile and metaphor and generalisations? Do all common names have to be literal? Isn't it actually a nice experience telling a child (or even an adult) that a banana is not from a tree or that pandas are not bears or that killer whales are actually dolphins? We do so not to 'disabuse' them of their ignorance but for simply fun. Let us defeat this misguided attack on the language. 1bj05hua (talk) 23:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. Well it looks like someone wasn't using his noodle. When I wrote the above comments I had no idea that the name had only just been changed a matter of days before. What's more it was tagged as a minor edit. So it looks like I stumbled in here, looked a round, didn't notice the very recent change (to sea star) and assumed that there was some reasonable discussion to be had about fixing the page. Boy was I wrong. Not only was the first move marked up as a minor edit but then someone else comes by straight after my comments and changes it back, again as a minor edit. What is going on here?1bj05hua (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

This is nothing short of amazing to me and exactly the sort of thing that folks correctly (unfortunately) point to when decrying wikipedia. Were we to let majority rule, we might well give up on evolution, at least in some countries. This is a clear case where scientists use one term that differs from the vast majority of common use. So who decides? The folks who write invertebrate zoology and other scientific texts (who use 'seastar'), or those who write popular texts (and use 'starfish'). Is this a science article? Anyone in favor of siding with the scientists? So, as soon as I figure out how to do it I'll change it to seastar once and once only. Before you change it back please do me one favor: do a google 'book search' for each term, and stick with the one that yields the larger number of science texts. CheersDmccabe (talk) 21:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

OK; failed to do the move. I requested a move instead.Dmccabe (talk) 22:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Since it appears the decision was to move to 'sea star', and there was no decision to move back, I've moved it to 'sea star' again. When there are two common names for a thing, and one is ambiguous or misleading, the standard approach is to use the less misleading term. For instance, horned lizard rather than horny toad—the latter is the more common term, but is dispreferred by herpetologists for being misleading. Also, assuming the unchallenged statement that 'starfish' includes brittle stars, which this article does not cover, is correct, then there's also the fact that 'starfish' is inaccurate as well as misleading. BTW, I grew up saying 'starfish', and that's still the word I use (just as I use 'horny toad'), but I recognize that an encyclopedia should be based on a higher standard. kwami (talk) 19:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Geological history

Added the ==Geological history== text from an article I originally in 1998 and published it on the Web....

Dlloyd 00:39, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Portions of this text are :

"Copyright © 1995-1997 The Fossil Company Ltd. © 1997-1999 The British Fossil Company Inc. and licensed by the owner under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." Please contact me if you need further clarification on this.

Dlloyd 00:55, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is ITIS authoritative?

The ITIS, which I suppose is authoritative, classifies Asteroidea as a subclass of the class Stelleroidea, so I adjusted the taxonomy to reflect this. k.lee 03:03, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

ITIS isn't necessarily authoritative, so things shouldn't be changed to match it. In this particular case, it looks like it doesn't match the system us$f.15+d.801$ed here and in various other places, since it either doesn't recognize the class Concentricycloidea or refers to it by a very different name. Accordingly, I'm reverting the change.

Sunstars?

No mention of sunstars, genus solaster. Phyllaplysia mention them in passing as a predator. Interesting since they violate the pentagonal symmetry ( or did I blink and miss a reclassification )--Shoka 21:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

A picture of a sunstar would be great, they are very beautiful animals. The picture could have an accompanying note about symmetry. However, I don't know where to get un-copyrighted animal pictures, so I'll just have to wait for someone else... Citizen Premier 13:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

the pink thorned star fish

la pinco spike fish

Class: brittle star found: 04:30, 14 january 1982

Class: Asteroidea--located is not the scientific name of the animal but the group in which it belongs.... Valserian (talk) 00:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Images

How about adding this image to the main article:

Looks like somebody did. I made it into a thumb so it wouldn't skew the page. Citizen Premier 06:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

the sea stars and the fishers

I've heard the story a few times of the fishermen who, for some reason, felt that the native starfish were impeding on their harvest, and so they began a policy of cutting all the starfish they found into half and throwing them back in the sea. According to the tale, this effectively doubled the starfish population. Is this story based on actual events or just an allegory for when trying to abolish something actually makes it stronger? Citizen Premier 06:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• Did some investigation on Google to attempt to clarify the section on reproduction. Came across reports of species under controlled conditions in aquarium actually losing about half an arm, by a process of autotomy with the original star surviving happily, and repeating the process, while the severed arms developed into further complete starfish. So at least some species actually use this as a method of asexual reproduction.

• The reports you mention may or may not be allegory, its not at all clear that all stars can do this, but the ability to re form from severed parts is clearly within the capability of some species, and thus your tale is at least potentially based on reality.--Shoka 23:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

info for the taking

My old bio project on this topic is at User:Stellertony/Notepad/Sea_star; I don't know how much, if any, of it would be useful and I don't have time to delve through it all right now, but feel free to take anything out of it that would be useful for this page (or any other). Stellertony the Bookcrosser 09:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for the offer. I'll look.--Shoka 23:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted to identify image

Could anyone help by identifying the species shown in these images uploaded to Commons? William Avery 18:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Right way up

Turned over

It's Asterias amurensis, the echinoderm that notoriously invaded Australian waters (they are native of Northeastern Pacific, in the seas of Japan and Russia). Make sure that no one misidentify this species with other native Australian sea stars. For more information, click here: Asterias amurensis

Best Regards, Pentapod 16:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

edit: I found a Wikipedia article about this species, so you will be able to place the picture at the correct place by now. Here: Northern Pacific seastar

Thank you. I took a little while to get back to this! William Avery 13:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Preditors?

Superficially it seems like stars would make easy prey. What defense mechanisms do they have and who are their preditors?

Lifespan?

Any idea of average lifespan ?

well lets assume this shall we, it obivously can grow back arm so it cant die from getting old or brittle. it would seem that a starfish can live for between 20-50 years. depending on the surrondings and all that jazz!

Requested move - 2007

This article has been renamed from sea star to starfish as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 11:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Sea star → Starfish — this move was done about 1.5 years ago, without consulting WP:RM. The name "sea star" seems to be a new term in order to correct the fact that a starfish is not actually a fish; however, it's not nearly the most common term: google gets 6 mil. hits for starfish: [1], and sea star gets under 1 million: [2]. It seems, by the arguments used above, that this new term has been created by aquariums, who also don't use the term jellyfish (!) because it's etymologically wrong. We don't want to create our own terms, simply because a word is more etymologically correct; this is the argument currently being used to move homophobia to the horrid neologism misohomo. Patstuart^talk|edits 19:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add  # '''Support'''  or  # '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in support of the move

1. Support as nom. Patstuart^talk|edits 21:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
2. Support. Come on this article is about starfish... It may not be an accurate name but it is the one most used. The entymological problems with the name can be discussed in the article, but using the most common name for something is clearly required by WP:NAME. WJBscribe ^{-WJB talk-} 19:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Support per nom. Joie de Vivre 22:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Support. These type of "concerted efforts" to change names because of perceived incorrectness can get ridicuclous. Yes, a starfish is may not be a fish but it's not a star either so the concerned parties had better look for a new name. If that's not persuasive enough, go look at Fish#What_is_a_fish.3F and you'll see that there's actually no such thing as a fish (or a zebra or Washington, D.C. or a sea or many other things that we assume exist nut don't but that still have Wikipedia articles) so calling it a starfish can't really be incorrect. When the name "sea star" actually attains predominant usage, then that title will be appropriate. —  AjaxSmack  09:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
5. Support per WP:COMMONNAME. --Kusunose
6. Support --Yath 02:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
7. Support absolutely no basis for having it at this non-name at all. Lots of common words have component parts referring to other words that aren't correct. Sea lions aren't lions, sea horses aren't horses, and so forth and so on. "Sea star" is just ridiculous. Shame on the ridiculous people who came up with it and shame on the people who put this article at the nonstandard name. Victrix 03:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
8. Support. I'd never even heard of "sea star", and the OED simply describes "sea star" as "a starfish". As already pointed out, move to starfish is legitimately in accordance with WP:COMMONNAME. Greg 08:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
9. Support. Most common English usage, according to WP naming convention. The intro line requires the term sea star in bold as well, of course. In my own Dutch language, the only term is 'zeester' which means literally sea star, but that does not count here. Dutch too has biologically incorrect words, like 'walvis', whale fish which is the mammal simply called whale in English. Don't fight the language. — SomeHuman 23 Jan2007 16:28 (UTC)

Survey - in opposition to the move

1. Oppose. There is a concerted effort within marine biology to change the title from starfish to sea star. The majority of the books I have with publication dates in the last five years refer to "starfish or sea stars" of simply sea stars. The redirect from Starfish is sufficient.--Shoka 21:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

   But this is precisely the problem. Wikipedia reports on knowledge, but it doesn't go along with trends until they equal or overcome previous trends. We report on the most common word now, not the way that the biologists think it should be. Patstuart^talk|edits 21:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

2. Oppose. If we're going by common terms, then flatulence should be moved to farting as "farting" is a much more common term for it than "flatulence" and also should not claim that humans are apes in the ape article, as the common usage of the term "ape" excludes humans and only includes the nonhuman hominoids. Saying that humans are apes is like saying the Japanese are Caucasians, it's simply wrong by definition. sea star is much more common than the odd terms misohomo which only gets fifteen Google hits. Voortle 22:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose Go with scientific consensus. Redirect starfish here, and educate those who wish to do research. The editor who used this to justify his "misohomo" nonsense did so without understanding the glaring ways in how these two situations differ. CaveatLector^Talk 18:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

   Starfish has always been redirected here, from when this page was renamed to Sea star originally.. The redirect page titles the link Starfishes to differentiate from the six other unrelated meanings of starfish.--Shoka 23:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

4. Oppose Sea star is a better name, and is common enough that it isn't out of left field. 132.205.44.134 01:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

Counting Google hits is not very helpful. Starfish is used in a lot of contexts other than the marine organism, see the redirect page for starfish for example, so it's hard to select only relevant hits. Conversely, "sea star" and seastar are probably less ambiguous. Further, though the class name of sea star is encouraged, the common names of species such as Asterias rubens remains "the common starfish" so generate even more misleading hits.

Note that in older publications cushion-stars are not usually listed as starfish but appear in their own grouping.

In modern usage they are included in the class asteroidea, common name sea star. The class being described in the article.--Shoka 00:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Since we must have this article editorially vandalised I can't raise the energy to fight the vandel fight. Off my watchlist --Shoka 21:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Bipinaria/larva

Isn't the larva called Bipinaria? - 01:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Pluteus?

The end of the first paragraph links to pluteus, which is a kind of mushroom, not the larval form of the sea star. Could someone who knows what's up clarify? -- Joshua BishopRoby 20:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

starfish

how long do they live for? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.232.157.71 (talk) 20:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

See here or here. θnce θn this island ^Speak! 22:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction

A starfish arm can only regenerate into a whole new organism if some of the central ring of the starfish is part of the chopped off arm.

Most species must have the central part of the body intact to be able to regenerate, but a few can grow an entire starfish from a single ray.

I don't know which is correct, but they can't both be...Dave.Dunford 10:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the Plateas comment. When you click on it at the end of the first paragraph, it goes to a kind of mushroom! what is up with that? mushroom have nothing to do with starfish.

This is probably a result of bad editting or a hyperlink problem.

I'm trying to write a report, and I dont feel like telling my teacher about mushrooms.

If you have an answer, plz help!!Small Textpleaaasseee!!71.225.106.138 20:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

school project

can star fish come back alive when they have been out of water for some time ?

If the starfish has begun to dry out when out of the water, then it dies, and can not be revived if reimmersed.--Mr Fink 15:15, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

what eats a starfish or seastar?

Birds, Sea Otters, and humans who collect them. Might I suggest posting other questions you may have at The Wikipedia Reference desk? There, people look for questions and they will answer your questions. Not that I'm not happy to answer your questions here, but it isn't exactly the right place to do it. --θnce θn this island ^Speak! 23:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

I suggest that if this page is to be considered under the topic of science that the term in scientific usage be used. I certainly agree that 'starfish' is in most common usage; but let's not aspire to be common; let's be an encyclopedia and not arm the wikipedia bashers with another mistake. A simple test: do a google 'book search' to see which term the scientists use. Heck, if I'm wrong use whatever term you like.Dmccabe (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

@Dmccabe

I think you're missing the point. Sea star is an artificial common name. In other words while it may actually be common it is not as common as starfish. (IMHO it is an unnecessary and misguided attempt at linguistic engineering.) If the page is to remain under a common name then it should be starfish. If it is to be under a scientific name it should be Asteroidea.

Wikipedia seems to prefer common names for some things (see onion, banana, apple, walnut, almond, moose or (our old friend) jellyfish) and latin/scientifc names for others (see Corylus avellana (hazelnut), cannabis (marijuana, ganja, weed etc) or Merlangius merlangus (whiting)). Good examples for us though are the entries for haddock and almond. Both have alternative (less) common names, offshore hake and cork nut respectively, but they are not headed up with these names.

Oppose1bj05hua (talk) 05:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hardly. This page links to the Asterozoa taxobox. Because of a considerable revision of the groupings of the echinodermata, this is both wrong and misleading. What the public used to call "starfish" did not include cushion stars and a whole bunch of things like sunstars that are included in the new classification. Starfish is a common description for the the penta radial symetrical members of this class. The present article equating the Asterozoa with "Starfish" is simply inaccurate. It is also out of line with the vast majority of marine recognition guides published in the last ten years and most of the specialist sites on the net. Either split this into two articles, one on starfish that does not link to the Asterozoa taxobox and one on sea stars that does, or restore its original title.

Support --Shoka (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow!
How depressing. Seems that starfish got moved back to sea star without any further discussion. This really disappoints me. The arguments for "seastar" were only marginally better than for "Jellyfish" (which I note still has not lost the battle). I know it's not authoritative or empirical evidence but I note that Google Scholar still does not support the 'scientific community' argument.
starfish + Asteroidea gets 2,610 hits[3]
"sea star" + Asteroidea gets 1410 hits[4]
starfish + marine gets 19,000 hits[5]
"sea star" + marine gets 4960 hits[6]

So................

1bj05hua (talk) 02:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

A New Requested move

Can we end this once and for all and follow the lead taken by all the entries that use their scientific names (i.e. latin names -- clearly names like "Sea Star" and "Sea Jelly" are not scientific even if they have some limited currency in the scientific world). Seahorse seems like the best role-model. I am no marine biologist and don't feel qualified to suggest the class/order/genus etc. to be used, so can someone else speak up? I would also suggest a further rewrite of the opening sentence to reflect common usage/reality (rather than a pedantic revisionist view or the English language). Something like:

Asteroidea are a class, known commonly as starfish (and sometimes assea stars), are a class belonging to the [phylum] echinodermata

1bj05hua (talk) 02:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm decidedly pro-starfish -- I think "sea star" is an idiotic neologism, and I can't think of and ordinary person actually ever using it in normal conversation (also, -- why was this issue settled to quickly with "jellyfish," but not here?), but I agree strongly with you that this would resolve the fairly silly debate going on here. Let's just rename it "asteroidea" and be done with it.

Varieties

I noticed that the internal links for pincushion sea star and eleven-armed sea star redirect to the same page. This isn't really important, but I thought that the links should at least be condensed or one could be omitted. I can't edit it myself, as it is semi-protected and I'm not a member. Help would be appreciated. 66.102.198.81 (talk) 21:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)SP

The link Asteroidea of the North Sea is "a must" for a starfish site. ---- slj 12.05.08

Starfish as food

I just saw, on the Travel Channel, a Chinese street vendor deep fry a starfish in a wok and serve it to the host, who ate an arm, and said that it tasted good. However, this article does not mention that they are edible by humans. Their edibility, and where they are part of local cuisines, should be added. Badagnani (talk) 05:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The Chinese eat everything...No offense. Smarkflea (talk) 06:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Predators of starfish?

The article mentions predators in at least two places, but gives no hint as to what sort of creatures the predators might be. Fish? Octopuses? (Or, as noted in the previous section, humans?) This is a regrettable omission. -- Dominus (talk) 20:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

At least one species of starfish Solaster paxillatus are predatory on other startfish. Picture here.. Sorry cannot raise the enthusiasm to fix the redlink, too much chance of editorial vandelism top be worth the effort. http://www.biopix.com/Species.asp?Searchtext=Solaster%20papposus&Category=LavereDyr --Shoka (talk) 11:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Scientific name of the animal

Can someone please add to a section the scientific name of this animal. Not the class order or phylum in which is belongs Valserian (talk) 00:09, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The class is the scientific name of the animal. kwami (talk) 22:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Reported discovery of eight-armed spiny sea star

It was reported last week in the UK, here and in less detail here, that an eight-armed spiny sea star had been caught off the coast of Cornwall, the sole documented case. It was suggested that the creature is an example of a pair of conjoined twins. Would anyone agree that this is worthy of inclusion? If so, where would the information be best placed? The end of the first paragraph of 'External anatomy' seems most appropriate with regard to subject matter, but might then harm the flow of general description. Another disinterested reader (talk) 19:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Mention of "developmental abnormalities" has since been made in the 'Appearance' section; I have added the reference here. Another disinterested reader (talk) 15:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Repeated insertion of blurred image File:Estrella de mar en Zoo Basel .JPG

I have place a further comment on User talk:Pediainsight. William Avery (talk) 12:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Page name

There was a move request in 2007 that resulted in a consensus to move from "Sea star" to "Starfish". In 2008, Fire55 moved it to "Sea Star" (note the second captial) saying it was the most "accepted" name. At some point not clear from the log, it was moved back to "Starfish". Later, Kwamikagami moved it to "Sea star" saying, "Discussion was to move to 'sea star'. No discussion to move back." There appears to have been no justification for Kwamikagami's move as there was no discussion prompting the move to "Sea star" and the most recent consensus is "Starfish". Fire55's move appears to have happened with absolutely no discussion. As a result, I intend to move the page back to "Starfish", which is by far the more common term in English (what is used in scientific literature is immaterial). Exactly what form that attempt will take depends upon the response here. -Rrius (talk) 22:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that wikipedia should strive to be more correct than popular but in this case... "sea star" is such an obscure name compared to "star fish" AND neither name is the scientific name, so I find it odd that a scientific argument would be used to separate two non scientific names. Naming conventions should be as uniform and scientific as possible but should also be familiar and usable. ("Leafy Sea Dragon" has an entry that is not scientific but it is useful for most users.) In the case of "sea star" I just cannot agree that its use is common enough to satisfy a "usefulness test" OR scientific enough to satisfy a "scientific" test. I can understand the logic of a debate between "star fish" or the scientific name but the inclusion of "sea star" doesn't fit either criterion. What do others think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.120.16.131 (talk) 06:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly suspect this "sea star" neologism is an American coinage. I would be interested to know if it has any currency in Britain; a quick test of my immediate acquaintances here in New Zealand (including a zoology graduate) revealed no familiarity with the term, but I suppose that's original research and doesn't count. What about India and other third world English speakers? Between them and the rest of us, North American English speakers are seriously outnumbered. Why should we be compelled to adopt a minority usage when "starfish" has served perfectly well for centuries? 118.92.149.128 (talk) 00:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm an American, and I have never once heard the term "sea star" spoken, and only saw in print for the first time a couple of days ago. As such, I have difficulty accepting your evidence-free suspicions. Before jumping into completely baseless supposition about who is to blame, why don't we get a sense of why on Earth anyone thinks we should be using "sea star" to begin with. -Rrius (talk) 02:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

That's funny. I came here after seeing on a blog that "kids call them 'sea stars' nowadays"[7], and assumed this was a British thing. Usually Americans tend to go for the most common type or archetype when naming things, while it's the British who go for bureaucratic-sounding neologisms ( ex. "motorists" vs. "road users" ). Anyway, I'm from the United States and never heard them called "sea stars" until now. Looking through Google Books and Google News archive, the term shows up in a few documents from the 1800s, but really didn't take off until the late 1980s. Probably a generational thing that started with schools using the more "politically correct" name.

Anyway, we all know that starfish aren't really fish, just like the seahorse isn't really a horse and the sea urchin isn't really an urchin. The same goes for jellyfish, sea cucumbers, and sand dollars. Unless we plan to move to the scientific name Asteroidea, we should leave it at the most common name, "starfish". Also see the essay WP:RECENTISM. Squidfryerchef (talk) 02:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I came here for the same reason, and had the same reaction about who the likely culprit was. Of course, academics are equally prone to force new words on us, so it may not be geographical. -Rrius (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move (2)

Sea star → Starfish — Per discussions on talk page, "starfish" appears to be the more commonly used name by far. "Sea stars", while trendy, feels artificial and may not be familiar to as many of our readers. -Squidfryerchef (talk) 02:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC) Support - It's not clear from the move logs why the last move-request consensus was overturned. "Starfish" is far more familiar to English-speakers from around the world. Per WP:NAME, that is what should guide our decision. -Rrius (talk) 02:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - As was stated earlier, the two main reasons why Starfish was moved to Sea Star are a) marine biologists are trying to get "sea star" used as a more accurate common name, and b) starfish are not "fish," i.e., any obligate gill-breathing vertebrate that isn't descended from a tetrapod.--Mr Fink (talk) 02:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually, Sea star was moved back to Starfish last time we had a formal merge request. However, an editor moved it to Sea star again, then after some vandalism the page was move-locked and therefore needs a move request so an admin can fix it. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Responding to those points: which marine biologists? Sea star isn't a scientific name after all, just something that's taught to schoolchildren. Starfish may not be fish, but neither are jellyfish, sea cucumber, seahorse, sand dollar, etc. Common names are best. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
    • This argument was raised and rejected the last time this was up for discussion. The result was to move it back to "starfish". Since then, with absolutely no discussion, one editor moved it to "Sea Star". After it was moved back to "starfish" and some Hagger-related page-move vandalism occurred, it moved to "Sea star" with a reference to a discussion that never appeared on this talk page. From the available record, there simply is no basis for saying there ever was a consensus for "sea star". It seems to be the personal preference of people like you, who think we should simply accept the wishes of marine biologists and teachers instead of reflecting the actual usage of English-speakers. In the prior discussions, it seems that no one supporting "sea star" has ever made an argument related to WP:NAME, but have instead made normative arguments about it being "better" or "more scientific". Since these creatures are no more stars than they are fish, the arguments are flawed on their face, but they are, more importantly, irrelevant. The common term is "starfish", so, under WP:NAME, "starfish" it should be. -Rrius (talk) 03:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support per results of previous move request discussion which were overturned without discussion. In case, that's not enough reason, support per WP:UCN. A starfish is may not be a fish but it's not a star either. And a sea doesn't really refer to a specific type of hydroform. And a centipede doesn't really have 100 legs. And so on. When the name "sea star" actually attains predominant usage, then that title will be appropriate but, until then, its' not Wikipedia's job to carry water for "marine biologists...trying to get 'sea star' used". (Now, if true accuracy is desired oceanic pentagram might work.) — AjaxSmack 05:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

If we wanted "true accuracy," then why not move it to "Asteroidea"?--Mr Fink (talk) 05:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Because we use common names. Just like we have articles on fish and zebras and couches even of they are not formal names or categories. — AjaxSmack 06:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support The move away for starfish was conducted without discussion, even though a 2007 discussion firmly confirmed a move to starfish on a WP:COMMONNAME basis. No WP:RM discussion has taken place since then so this really should be a procedural move back to the article title that had previously been decided upon by the community. --Labattblueboy (talk) 09:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Starfish is a good topic, and should have an article. Andrewa (talk) 11:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't think you understand. This is the article about starfish; the question is whether it should be called "Starfish" or "Sea star". -Rrius (talk) 18:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support: this is the common name used by ordinary people and biologists, never mind what Mr. Fink says. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose "starfish" is the thing that looks like a pentastar, there are other varieties. 70.29.211.138 (talk) 05:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support: The supposed prescriptive wishes ascribed above to marine biologists, who I am sure are for the most part sensible people, have no place in deciding this question, and Wikipedia should not be aiding any group in such supercilious pointiness. We'll only have to move it to some other neologism when someone gets a bee in their bonnet about them not being massive, luminous balls of plasma. William Avery (talk) 11:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)