It is a creamy, slightly bluish colour, variously blotched with brown, and is rough textured with short spines.

[2] The range of Coscinasterias tenuispina includes the Mediterranean Sea, France, Spain and Portugal, the Azores and other Atlantic Islands, Bermuda, Cuba and the American coast between North Carolina and Santos, Brazil.

[1] A number of divergent populations of the starfish in the Atlantic and Mediterranean are believed to be deserving of being recognized as sub-species.

The starfish is found on hard bottoms and under stones and seaweed where it mainly feeds on other echinoderms and on bivalve molluscs.

[4] To begin the process of asexual reproduction, or "fission", the disc tears itself into two sections, with each part eventually growing extra arms and developing into a new individual.