See Text The Forcipulatida are an order of sea stars, containing three families and 49 genera.

Forcipulatids share with the brisingid sea stars distinctive pedicellariae, consisting of a short stalk with three skeletal ossicles.

[1] The order includes some well-known species, such as the common starfish, Asterias rubens.

This order can be commonly found from North Carolina in the United States all the way to Santos in Brazil.

[2] The order is divided into three families:[3] World Register of Marine Species gives another taxonomy, with 7 families and 64 genera: A 2020 study involving phylogenetic analysis and scanning electron microscopy of the skeleton and ossicles of taxa from the superorder Forcipulatacea recovered Asteriidae, Stichasteridae, Zoroasteridae, and Brisingida as monophyletic.