ophiure

plural ophiures

1. rareAny echinoderm of the class Ophiuroidea

   SHORT-SPINED OPHIURE.

   1815, William Elford Leach, Richard P. Nodder, The zoological miscellany, page 59

   5 more examples

   In the Ophiure, the arms are of great length, and in Euryale, each arm, directly it stretches out beyond the body, divides into two branches, and these again into others, which again and again divide, assuming the appearance of interweaving branches of a tree, and which they employ for entangling their prey.

   1845, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, volume 7, page 269

   From the bottom of his nets a fisherman one day gave me three almost dying creatures, a sea hedgehog, a sea star, and another star, a pretty ophiure, which still moved and soon lost its delicate arms.

   1864, The sea, translator unknown, original by M. J. Michelet, page 128

   Their food consisted of shells, worms, and Ophiures.

   1889, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, volume 15, Edinburgh: Royal Society, page 219

   Other symbionts found on the same host were: Lissoporcellana pectinata Haig (Porcellanidae), crabs Quadrella sp. (Trapeziidae), some specimens of spider-crab family Majidae, and ophiures (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea).

   1990, Acta Societatis Zoologicae Bohemoslovacae, volume 54, Czechoslovak Zoological Society, page 3

   As for the species level, ophiures Amphiodia urtica dominate.

   1999, Oceanology, volume 39, American Geophysical Union, page 87

   Synonyms: ophiuroid, brittle star