介绍： This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.
Brittle stars are close relatives of starfish with a much more delicate appearance.
"So if you imagine a starfish with really skinny, spiny arms, made up of lots of little articulated plates, that's kind of what a brittle star looks ...

介绍： This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.
Brittle stars are close relatives of starfish with a much more delicate appearance.
"So if you imagine a starfish with really skinny, spiny arms, made up of lots of little articulated plates, that's kind of what a brittle star looks like—a cross between a millipede and a starfish, I guess."
Lauren Sumner-Rooney is a visual ecologist at Oxford University. One of the brittle star species she studies, Ophiocoma wendtii, also has color-changing superpowers.
"If you catch one of these animals during the day, they're a really beautiful reddish brown, dark brown color. If you actually go out again at night and collect the same animal, they're this very pale beige with dark stripes."
The reason for that color shift was murky—perhaps for UV protection or camouflage. But now Sumner-Rooney's team has come up with a possible answer: that red coloration might help the brittle stars sort of see, even though they have no eyes.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。
海蛇尾是海星的近亲，但外表更为精致。
“想象一下海星，它长着细长且多刺、由许多小关节盘组成的腕，这基本上就是海蛇尾的样子，我感觉像是千足虫和海星的杂交体。”
牛津大学的视觉生态学家劳伦·萨姆纳·鲁尼说到。她研究其中一种海蛇尾Ophiocoma wendtii，其还拥有变色超能力。
“如果白天捉到这种海蛇尾，会看到它们呈现出非常漂亮的红棕色和深棕色。如果晚上再去抓，它们就会变成带有深色条纹的浅米色。”
颜色变化的原因尚不明朗，也许是为了防紫外线或伪装。但现在，萨姆纳·鲁尼的团队想出了可能的答案：红色可能会帮助海蛇尾看东西，即使他们没有眼睛。