The Memories of a Starfish

I came across an interesting open access paper by Martha R. Weiss, Douglas J. Blackiston and Elena Silva Casey in PLoS One (Volume 3 Issue 3 March 2008) describing how a moth conditioned to avoid a certain odour as a caterpillar, retained that aversion as an adult.  This only happened if the conditioning happened in later larval development (i.e. when the caterpillar was just a moulting or two away from pupation).  In other words, associative memory survives metamorphosis.

This leads me to wonder if the starfish retains the memories from when it was a larva, in particular does the luidia adult star fish have the same memories as the larva from which it has developed.  Furthermore, since the two selves - adult and junior - can exist at the same time, what would happen if they could talk and compare notes.  If puberty is indeed a form of incomplete metamorphosis it would be like myself as I am now - a empowered adult - remembering an incident that happened when I was a powerless child talking to a form of myself that is still that child.

I think the memories would be changed, just as all memories change as we try to recall them.  The adult starfish's memory would from the viewpoint of an animal with restricted mobility; whereas the larva's viewpoint would be little changed.  Maybe if they were to compare notes they would not agree: an unreliable witness encountering a reliable one.  They would argue indefinitely - one self against the same older self - each with an identical conviction they are right.