Big Butt ‘Starfish’ Photo Sparks Memes on Twitter

A photo that supposedly shows a starfish with a big butt has gone viral. “Saw a thicc ass starfish at the aquarium today ?,” the original post, which you can see later in this article, read. The animal was photographed at Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA.

However, it wasn’t really a starfish. It’s a pink sea star.

The post first appeared on the Twitter page of a user who goes by あかり(AKARI) @Babyshoujo and whose Twitter profile reads, “??あかり(AKARI)☁️21 y.o. ????? ⚡️?? fashion/art/makeup/miscellaneous bullshit ???⭐️.”

According to NPR, the photo shows a “pink sea star.” It does sort of look like it has a big butt, although some experts have weighed in (yes, really) to claim that starfish don’t really have big butts after all, despite the photographic evidence to the contrary. Some of the funniest memes, which you can see later in this article, came in replies to the original tweet. Here’s the original tweet, which has more than 630,000 likes and over 170,000 retweets:

Here’s what you need to know:

The Twitter User Apologized for ‘Sexualizing Starfish’ & the Creature Doesn’t Really Have a Big Butt

The Twitter user has written more about the starfish:

“-Aquarium of the Pacific -yes, I know who Patrick is ? -starfish don’t have ass cheeks, it’s a middle school level joke but I’m sorry that I’m ‘sexualizing starfish.’ My sister was like ‘omg look’ & I thought ‘haha looks like it has a butt’ -thought only like 2 ppl would see it.” That’s how viral stuff often goes, of course.

The Twitter user also posted a list of links to causes, in an effort to turn the viral starfish into something positive.

However, it’s not really accurate to call the creature a starfish.

“Sea stars are actually invertebrates or animals without backbones and not fish despite people commonly referring to them as ‘starfish,'” Nate Jaros, curator of fish and invertebrates at the Aquarium of the Pacific, told USA Today. He also said that what looks like a butt in the picture is really the creature’s arms. “Sea stars sometimes relax their arms such as when they are eating,” he told the publication.

USA Today then asked Jaros whether they ever thought the pink sea star would go viral for its supposed butt. His response: “We did not.”

That didn’t stop people from weighing in and claiming it’s possible for starfish to have big butts.

The memes and jokes immediately flew on Twitter. As noted, many of them came in replies to the original tweeter of the viral photo. Here are some of them:

Many of the people making jokes predictably referenced SpongeBob SquarePants.