First find of the starfish, Asterias rubens Linnaeus, 1758, off the Anatolian coast of the Black Sea (Sinop)

Abstract

Starfish Asterias rubens was found as the first record from the Anatolian coast of the Black Sea (Sinop). This alien starfish was reported in 1996 in the Bosporus Strait (the Marmara Sea). In 2009, A. rubens was registered off Karasu and Sakarya coasts in the Western Black Sea. A. rubens (8 cm in diameter; wet weight 12.970 g) was sampled by a commercial demersal trawl on the sandy-mud bottom at 85.5-m depth on 12 February, 2022, on the Anatolian coast of the Black Sea, which indicates further expansion of its areal in the sea.

Keywords

• starfish
• Asterias rubens
• alien species
• Black Sea
• Turkey