The Fossil Record and Evolution of Brittle Stars

Section: Palaeontology

Responsible staff: Ben Thuy

Research strategy: Understanding and Preserving Nature, Society and Natural History

Brittle stars are marine invertebrates closely related to starfish and form an important component of seafloor faunas in oceans worldwide.

Their exceptionally rich fossil record makes them an ideal model organism for studying large‑scale evolutionary trends and the links between biodiversity and Earth history.

In recent years, the Palaeontology Section of the National Museum of Natural History has developed internationally recognised expertise in the study of brittle stars. With this project, we continue to expand this expertise and investigate the fossil record of brittle stars in order to contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of life.

Recent publications :

Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Gale, A.S. (2025) A Jurassic relict of the Triassic stem euryalid brittle star Aspiduriella (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea). Zootaxa, 5620 (3), 470–476. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5620.3.6

Numberger-Thuy, L.D., Ishida, I. & Thuy, B. (2024): Unexpected brittle-star diversity in the Carnian (Upper Triassic) of SW-China and Japan. Cahiers de Biologie Marine, 65: 525-548.

Thuy, B. & Furrer, H. (2024): Brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) from the Middle Triassic Prosanto Formation of the eastern Swiss Alps, including a relict genus from the Carboniferous. Cahiers de Biologie Marine, 65: 549-558.

Thuy, B., Eriksson, M. E., Kutscher, M., & Numberger-Thuy, L. D. (2024): The beginning of a success story: basalmost members of the extant ophiuroid clade from the Silurian of Gotland, Sweden. European Journal of Taxonomy, 947(1), 216–247. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2024.947.2631

Galli, G., Morigi, C., Thuy, B. & Gariboldi, K. (2024): Late Holocene echinoderm assemblages can serve as paleoenvironmental tracers in an Antarctic fjord. Scientific Reports, 14: 15300. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-66151-5

Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D., Härer, J., Kroh, A., Winkler, V. & Schweigert, G. (2024): Fossil evidence for the ancient link between clonal fragmentation, six-fold symmetry and an epizoic lifestyle in asterozoan echinoderms. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291: 20232832. http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2832

Reddy, C., Thuy, B., Reid, M. & Gess R. (2023): Earliest known ophiuroids from high palaeolatitude, southern Gondwana, recovered from the Pragian to earliest Emsian Baviaanskloof Formation (Table Mountain Group, Cape Supergroup) South Africa. PLoS ONE 18(10): e0292636. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292636.

Thuy, B. & Numberger-Thuy, L.D. (2023): The Northernmost Occurrence of the Tropical-Subtropical Brittle Star Ophiocoma (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea) from a Late Cretaceous Rocky Shore in Southern Sweden. Taxonomy, 3: 346–355.

Thuy, B., Piñuela, L. & García-Ramos, J.C. (2023): A relict Triassic brittle star (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea) in Lower Jurassic strata of Asturias, north-west Spain. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, 142(10).

Gale, A.S., Ishida, Y., Jagt, J.W.M., Thuy, B., Komatsu, T. & Fujita, T. (2023): A new asteroid (Echinodermata, Astropectinidae) and ophiuroid (Echinodermata, Hemieuryalidae) from the mid-Cretaceous of southern Japan. Paleontological Research, 28(2): 1-14.

Ishida, Y., Tagiri, M., Kato, T., Tsunoda, S., Nakajima, Y., Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Fujita, T. (2023): The new brittle-star species Stegophiura takaisoensis (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea) from the Pliocene of Ibaraki Prefecture, central Japan. Paleontological Research, 28(1), 82-96.

Campetella, D.M., Palópolo, E.E., Rodríguez, M.N., Thuy, B., Ponce, J.J., Carmona, N.B. & Casadío, S. (2023): First Jurassic brittlestar from Neuquén Basin, Argentina. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 68(1): 143-153.

Thuy, B., Knox, L., Numberger-Thuy, L.D., Smith, N.S. & Sumrall, C.D. (2023): Ancient deep ocean as a harbor of biotic innovation revealed by Carboniferous ophiuroid microfossils. Geology, 51(2): 157–161 https://doi.org/10.1130/G50596.1

Ishida, Y., Kaneko, M., Yokobori, A., Mita, R., Ishikawa, H., Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Fujita, T. (2023): Amphiura multispina (Ophiuroidea, Amphiuridae) from the upper Pleistocene Kioroshi Formation in a drill core at Nagareyama, Chiba, central Japan. Paleontological Research, 27(3): 310-323.

Ishida, Y., Trinh, H.T., Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D., Komatsu, T., Doan, H.D., Nguyen, M.T., Shigeta, Y., Fujita, T. (2022): A New Genus and Species of Brittle Star (Ophiuroidea: Ophioleucida) from the Upper Triassic (Carnian) of Northern Vietnam. Paleontological Research, 27(2):147-159.

O’Hara, T.D. & Thuy, B. (2022): Biogeography and taxonomy of Ophiuroidea (Echinodermata) from the Îles Saint-Paul and Amsterdam in the southern Indian Ocean. Zootaxa, 5124 (1): 001-049.

Thuy, B., Nungesser, K. & Numberger-Thuy, L.D. (2022): New Brittle Stars (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea) from the Oligocene of the Mainz Basin, Germany. Taxonomy, 2: 196-207.

Thuy, B., Eriksson, M.E., Kutscher, M., Lindgren, J., Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Wright, D.F. (2022): Miniaturization during a Silurian environmental crisis generated the modern brittle star body plan. Communications Biology, 5: 14 (2022).

Ishida, Y., Thuy, B., Nam, G.-S., Martynov, A., Fujita, T. & Kim, J.-H. (2022): A new species of Ophiura (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea) from Miocene deep-sea deposits in the Pohang Basin, Korea. Paleontological Research, 26 (1): 18-30.

Thuy, B., Maxwell, V. & Pruss, S.B. (2021): A new phosphatized ophiuroid from the lower Triassic of Nevada and its position in the evolutionary history of the Ophiuroidea (Echinodermata). Zootaxa, 5071 (3): 369-383.

Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Pineda-Enríquez, T. (2021): New fossils of Jurassic ophiurid brittle stars (Ophiuroidea; Ophiurida) provide evidence for early clade evolution in the deep sea. Royal Society Open Science, 8: 210643. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210643

O’Hara, T.D., Thuy, B., Hugall, A.F. (2021): Relict from the Jurassic: new family of brittle-stars from a New Caledonian seamount. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 288: 20210684 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0684

Thuy, B. & Numberger-Thuy, L.D. (2021): Brittlestar diversity at the dawn of the Jenkyns Event (early Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event): new microfossils from the Dudelange drill core, Luxembourg. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 514: 83 – 119. https://doi.org/10.1144/SP514-2021-3

Thuy, B., Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Jagt, J.W.M. (2020): A new ophiacanthid brittle star (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea) from sublittoral crinoid and seagrass communities of late Maastrichtian age in the southeast Netherlands. PeerJ, 8:e9671.

Numberger-Thuy, L.D. & Thuy, B. (2020): A new bathyal ophiacanthid brittle star (Ophiuroidea: Ophiacanthidae) with Caribbean affinities from the Plio-Pleistocene of the Mediterranean. Zootaxa, 4820: 19-30.