[2] This species was collected by the marine biologist Craig McClain and first described by echinoderm specialist Christopher Mah in 2015, being named Paulasterias mcclaini in honour of its finder.

Larger specimens have a thick fleshy skin on the aboral (upper) surface, with spongy tissue underneath, which conceals the dermal plates.

[4] This starfish was found as part of the assemblage of animals forming a community on the seabed at a deep sea hydrothermal vent in the Northeast Pacific off the coast of Washington and Oregon.

[4] Starfish are unable to cope with the hot, sulphurous, toxic environment of the hydrothermal vent itself but they are present in the cooler, cleaner water nearby.

Hoff crabs live adjacent to the hydrothermal vent chimneys, with gastropod molluscs and then goose barnacles occupying zones further out.