A cushion star with a T-Bar tag
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While I was working on some of my other cushion star projects, I needed to find a way to ID individuals. This was important for me to track what individuals I was seeing on the reef and what individuals I was using for my feeding experiments. I first tried applying T-Bar tags, which are usually used to ID fish. However, because cushion stars have a water vascular system all over their body, it is likely I was puncturing that in the process of applying the tag. These tags were causing stars to look deflated, and in some cases, they ended up dying.
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Picture of a recently tagged cushion star. You can see it has that inflated, cushion appearance
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We found the same cushion star a couple of months later, diseased, and it had lost that inflated appearance
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During a talk by another researcher I discovered the software I3S spot. This photo-identification software relies on the natural markings found on animals to identify them. In the past, I3S pattern has been used to ID manta rays and newts. Through some trial and error, I discovered a way to use this software for cushion stars. Although this is a bit of a side project, it's one of the ones I am most excited about because, to my knowledge, nothing like this has been tried before! Once I have collected all the data I need, I will publish the results in a methods paper so others can use the same techniques.
