#4877 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Common Brittle Star
🇳🇱 Brokkelster ·Ophiothrix fragilis
🪼 Jellyfish, starfish, worms & co 📍 in the Netherlands
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Ophiothrix fragilis is a species of brittle star in the order Ophiurida. It is found around the coasts of western Europe and is known in Britain as the common brittle star .
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 44 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: the #31 most seen of the jellyfish, starfish, worms & co in NL.
- 3,770 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Peter Christian Abildgaard in 1789 (237 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Common Brittle Star
- Nederlands
- Brokkelster
- scientific name
- Ophiothrix fragilis
- class
- Ophiuroidea
- order
- Amphilepidida
- family
- Ophiotrichidae
- sightings in NL
- 44
- sightings in Europe
- 2,818
- sightings worldwide
- 3,770
- GBIF records in NL
- 1,610
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1789 by Peter Christian Abildgaard
relatives· Ophiotrichidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 326334, Wikidata Q937173, GBIF 5187835, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.