Tom Edwards, aged 10, of Woodside, Calif., for his question:

What's the family name for a starfish?

The starfish is not really a fish at all. However, like a fish, he lives in the ocean and he most certainly looks like a star. He belongs to a sea going group of animals called the echinoderms. Their name means the spiny skinned ones. Mr. Starfish has a rough, pebbly kind of coat.

Some of his distant cousins are even more spiny shinned. One of them is the prickly sea urchin.  At certain seasons this fellow looks like a curled up hedgehog. Another of the echinoderm cousins is the sea cucumber  who is an animal. His mouth opens directly into his stomach. But he has one good trick up his sleeve  a. trick for which we can all envy him. If he loses one of his five arms, he can grow a new one.