'It was perfect': Woman in awe after finding giant starfish at Texas beach

A starfish photographed at a Texas beach has social media users in awe at its size.

Christina Biery, who lives in Aransas Pass, about 20 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, took a stroll near a jetty at Port Aransas around 1 p.m. on July 12 when she spotted a group of the starfish and put them back in the water.

“A lot of the seagrass and everything gets caught right there in that and that's where I was finding the starfish," she told USA TODAY.

She said she spotted about 10, but one of them stuck out.

Biery picked the biggest sea star up, initially thinking it was dead. Its body was the size of her palm but its arms were longer than her hands, she said. 

She put the sea star back in the sand, flipping it over to snap a photo, she said. She eventually put it closer to the water so it didn’t become prey to birds or other animals.

Woman stumbled upon a gray sea star, expert says

Mark Fisher, science director for the Coastal Fisheries Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife, said the creature is a gray sea star. Sea stars have five arms and on their arms are small tube feet that help them move. 

Fisher said sea stars live burrowed in the sand along the shore, in the surf zone and beyond. 

The surf has been rough lately due to wind and when this happens, the sea stars get “churned up and wash up on the beach,” he said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Sea star was ‘perfect,’ spotter says

The video Biery captured shows the sea star’s tube feet moving as it makes its way back to the water.

“I just put him out far enough that the waves would catch him,” she said. “He was going too slow for me so I brought him out a little bit farther. I didn't want a seagull or anybody to snatch him.”

A few hours later, she posted photos and video to Shutter Bugs Port Aransas, a video and photography Facebook group she likes.

“That one is HUGE,” wrote one social media user.

Biery, who found the sea star, loves walking the beach. She enjoys the sound of the waves and the water coming in and tends to go a lot at night.

“I've had skin cancer and I shouldn't be out there in the sunlight anyway,” she said, noting that she was diagnosed 12 years ago and is doing fine now. 

She likes the Facebook group because people often post beautiful photos, she said. When she found the sea star, she figured she’d share her own footage and pictures.

Usually, she sees birds, jellyfish or starfish that are dead or missing arms when she's at the beach but the large one she found had all of its arms intact.

“I was going to take him,” she said. “I picked him up and those little (feet) that you see move in that video, he started doing that in my hand. To me, it was perfect.”