Feeding habits of Oreaster reticulatus ( Echinodermata: Asteroidea).

Observations in grassbed and sand-bottom habitats in the Grenadines and off St. Croix, US Virgin Islands indicate that O. reticulatus is primarily an omnivorous, microphagous substratum grazer. It extrudes its extensive cardiac stomach upon seagrass, sand, and/or algal substrates and ingests associated micro- organisms and particulate detritus. O. reticulatus also functions as an opportunistic predator and scavenger of any available slow-moving, sessile or moribund macrofauna and is occasionally cannibalistic. -from Authors