BullBULLETIN Mar Sci. OF 93(4):1009–1010.MARINE SCIENCE. 2017 00(0):000–000. 0000 https://doi.org/10.5343/bms.2017.1032doi:10.5343/ Diet of Acanthaster brevispinus, sibling species of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns startfish, Acanthaster planci sensu lato Hideaki Yuasa 1, Yukihiro Higashimura 1, Keiichi Nomura 2, Nina Yasuda 3 * 1 Graduate School of Agriculture, University of Miyazaki, Gakuen-kibanadai-nishi-1-1, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan. 2 Kushimoto Marine Park Center, Arita Kushimoto, Wakayama, 649-35, Japan. 3 Organization for Promotion of Tenure Track, University of Miyazaki, Gakuen-kibanadai-nishi-1-1, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan. * Corresponding author email: <
[email protected]>. Acanthaster planci sensu lato (Linnaeus, 1758) (crown-of-thorns starfish) is notorious for predating on hard corals the in the Indo-Pacific reefs; however, the natural diet of its sibling species, Acanthaster brevispinus brevispinus Fisher, 1917, is unknown. Only a few reports on A. brevispinus occurrence are available, indicating that A. brevispinus is a rare species. This species occurs in the Philippines (Fisher 1919), the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (Birkeland and Lucas 1990), and off the town of Kushimoto, south of the Japanese mainland (Saba et al. 2002). Although population outbreaks of A. planci sensu lato have been well documented, there have been no reports of outbreaks of A. brevispinus. According to Lucas and Jones (1976), A. planci sensu lato and A. brevispinus differ in preferred habitat and morphology, but they are genetically compatible, indicating recent speciation. Lucas and Jones (1976) suggested that A. planci sensu lato evolved from an A.