If I Only Had a Brain

Perhaps what I've thought all these years is wrong.

I photographed this starfish on the Oregon coast.

It's alive. It moves. It finds food. So I always assumed it had a brain — and that its brain was right there in the middle.

It doesn't.

A starfish has no brain at all.

Of course, that immediately made me think of the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz singing, “If I Only Had a Brain.”

But unlike the Scarecrow, this starfish seems to get along just fine without one.

Instead of a brain calling the shots, it has a ring of nerves connected to nerves running into each of its arms. That network helps coordinate its movement.

And somehow, it works.

Turns out, what I couldn't see was even more interesting.

Sometimes that's what happens when you take a closer look.