Sea Urchin

sea urchin, any of about 950 living species of spiny marine invertebrate animals (class Echinoidea, phylum Echinodermata) with a globular body and a radial arrangement of organs, shown by five bands of pores running from mouth to anus over the test (internal skeleton). The pores accommodate tube feet, which are slender, extensible, and often sucker-tipped. From nodules on the test arise long, movable spines and pedicellariae (pincerlike organs); these structures may have poison glands. The mouth, on the underside of the body, has a complex dental apparatus called Aristotle’s lantern, which also may be venomous. The teeth of Aristotle’s lantern are typically extruded to scrape algae and other food from rocks, and some urchins can excavate hiding places in coral or rock—even in steel. Sea urchins live on the ocean floor, usually on hard surfaces, and use the tube feet or spines to move about. In addition, a few carnivorous species have been described.

The largest urchin (known from a single specimen) is Sperostoma giganteum of deep waters off Japan. Hatpin urchins, such as Centrostephanus longispinus of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, Diadema (formerly Centrechinus) setosum of the Indo-Pacific, and D. antillarum of Florida and the West Indies, have toxic spines up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) long. The slate-pencil urchin (Heterocentrotus mammillatus) of the Indo-Pacific has 12-cm spines that may be 1 cm thick—stout enough to be used for writing. Lytechinus variegatus, a pale-greenish urchin of the southeastern coast of the United States and the Caribbean, and the large, short-spined Psammechinus (sometimes Echinus) miliaris of Iceland, Europe, and western Africa use their tube feet to hold up bits of seaweed or shell as a shield against sunlight in shallow water.

The small, reddish or purplish urchins of the genus Arbacia, such as A. punctulata, the common urchin from Cape Cod to the West Indies, are familiar subjects in embryology; a female may release several million eggs at a time. In the West Indies, sea eggs—the ovaries of Tripneustes ventricosus—are eaten raw or fried; in the Mediterranean region, frutta di mare is the egg mass of Paracentrotus lividus (the best known rock borer) and other Paracentrotus species; and, on the U.S. Pacific coast, the eggs of the giant purple (or red) urchin (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) are similarly considered a delicacy. The slightly smaller S. purpuratus, of the same region, is known to excavate holes in steel pilings. See also cake urchin; heart urchin.