It may look like an alien, or even a monstrous moving plant, but this incredibly complex-looking creature is a relative of the starfish.
The basket star (Gorgonocephalus caputmedusae) was caught off the coast of Singapore and continues to wave its arms after it is pulled out of water in this video.
It actually has five arms, which are each split into more dexterous 'branchlets', which it uses to catch prey underwater.
The creature can live around 6,564 ft (2 km) below the waves, but typically favours life between 50 ft (15 metres) and 500 feet (152 metres) below sea level, according to experts at Oregon State University.
Despite being rarely seen, basket stars live along the Pacific Coast, from the Bering Sea to southern California.
Jr Saim, a business executive from Singapore, claims to have caught and filmed the animal, iO9 reported.
Basket stars have five arms radiating from a central disk, like other members of the echinoderm family, which includes starfish, sea urchins and brittle stars.
But they differ from starfish, for example, because each arm branches out into countless flexible others, which can be used by the creature to create a tangled mesh designed to ensnare plankton and even small crustaceans.
These flexible tendrils act like a basket to catch prey, giving the animal its name.
They position themselves in a place where there is a current strong enough to cause small creatures to drift past it – without carrying the basket star away too.
The basket star spreads its arms out to create as large a ‘basket’ as possible. It then grabs prey by coiling its tendrils around plankton and small animals.
Very little is known about the animal’s eating habits, but it is known that the spines and hooks on its arms, as well as mucus, make it hard for prey to escape its clutches.
Experts at the university explained: ‘The basket star wraps several brachlets around its prey, forming a knot. This knotted arm is then drawn toward the central disk.
‘The manner in which food is transferred through the disk to be digested is not yet known.’
Basket stars can have a central disk that is five-and-a-half inches (14cm) in diameter and each of their arms can be up to five times longer than their body.
They come in orange, red and white.
