What if someone told you that a beautiful ball of black and white feathers drifting and spinning through a crystal-clear blue sea was a real creature that lives in Thailand’s oceans?
Hard to believe, isn’t it? That’s what global netizens have been thinking too.
A short video clip, taken by Dutch diver Els van den Eijnden, has been circulating online for the last few weeks. It portrays a creature called a “Feather Star.” If you have been diving in Thailand, you may have seen one of these fantastic creatures as well.
However, you might have just thought it was some hipster’s discarded headband floating along the bottom of the ocean. These Feather Stars often stay near the bottom of the sea, firmly attached to coral in order to catch food.
In this clip, we see a rare moment when a Feather Star decided to go for a freewheeling little swim.
While the video has trended online, being picked up by the National Geographic and Daily Mail, it went mega-viral when it was shared by Business Insider UK recently, garnering 24 million views and 404,000 shares.
According to National Geographic, Feather Stars are crinoids, or marine invertebrates related to starfish and sea lilies. They’ve been around for 200 million years and exist in oceans all over the world but with particular concentration in Asia Pacific.
Feather Stars can be many colors, from dark red to bright orange to fluorescent yellow. Their feathers, which are used to catch food, can each be up to a foot long. Some Feather Stars have as many as 200 feathers.
Now we have yet another reason to go back to the islands. Not that we needed one.
Reader Interactions