They lay in their thousands, covering the beach in a carpet of pink and orange. Some were curled up, their spiny feet pointing towards the sky. Others lay flat where they had been washed up by the tide. All were dead.
If the collective noun for a normal group of starfish is a constellation, then this pitiful sight on the Kent coastline was more like a galaxy.
Mass starfish strandings, or "wrecks", are not uncommon in Britain and typically happen once a year.
But the scale of death visited upon the beaches of southern England in the past few weeks has stunned conservationists and prompted a major investigation into what could be killing so many marine animals. It had been assumed - hoped, even - that the deaths were the result of freak weather or unusual tides outside the control of people.Some of the deaths undoubtedly were. But experts now believe the slaughter which has blighted Kent and Sussex is also the result of human activity - more particularly, the intensive fishing for mussels.
Starfish are without doubt one of the great wonders of the marine world. "They are amazing," says Prof Martin Attrill at Plymouth University, one of Britain's leading starfish experts.
"They have incredible powers of regeneration. If you chop off an arm, it will grow back within months and if you chop a starfish in half, it will grow back into two. "In the Thames estuary they were once regarded as pests, and fishermen used to try to kill them by slicing them in half and throwing them back. But, of course, all they were doing was doubling the numbers."
Most species of starfish have five arms, but some have many more. The sun starfish - a giant creature sometimes seen off the west coast of Britain - can have up to 24 arms and grow up to 30in across.
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