Crown of Thorns Starfish

This creature is rarely seen in the Madang area. Actually we are pretty glad about that, since it has the nasty habit of killing off the coral. It's beautiful in a grotesque sort of way.

You can get an idea of the size of the thing from the diver's hand. One of our local divers with about 800 dives in the area says this is the only one he's ever seen here.