Expecting to find a recipe for Christmas treats? Look again. These fine-looking specimens are rare Arctic cookie stars, a small species of starfish native to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska—almost certainly not tasty to humans.

But don’t be fooled by the star’s cartoonlike appearance. This carnivorous sucker feasts on sponges, shellfish, and mollusks by creeping up on tiny tube feet, extruding its stomach to envelope prey, then pulling its stomach back in once the meal is digested. 

When it’s time for romance, Ceramaster arcticus can reproduce both sexually and asexually, with fertilization taking place in open water. The larvae swim around for a while, then head down to the ocean floor and blossom into yellow, pink, or orange beauties.

Animal lover and National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore captured this image at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward as part of his 25-year Photo Ark endeavor to document each of the 12,000 species in captivity (before they’re gone, sadly).