sea urchin, spherical-shaped echinoderm with movable spines covering the body. The body wall is a firm, globose shell, or test, made of fused skeletal plates and marked by regularly arranged tubercles to which the movable spines are attached. Five rows of the skeletal plates are pierced by pores for the tube feet of the water-vascular system; these are typical of echinoderms and are used for locomotion. The mouth is centered on the lower side of the body and in many species is surrounded by a whorl of gills. A complex jaw and tooth apparatus in the mouth, known as Aristotle's lantern, is used to fragment food. Long, sharp spines are used for protection, and in some species are poisonous. The spines are also used as levers, aiding the tube feet in locomotion and, along with the teeth, are used by some species to dig burrows in hard rock. Sea urchins feed on all kinds of plant and animal material; some eat sand or mud, digesting out organic material that is present. Entirely marine, they occur in all seas and at all depths but prefer shallower waters and rocky bottoms.
Arbacia and
Strongylocentrotus are the most familiar American genera; one species of the latter, the red sea urchin (
S. franciscanus) of the Pacific coast, is estimated to live for 200 years or more. Eggs and sperm are shed into the sea. After fertilization, a characteristic, free-swimming larva, called the pluteus larva, develops; it undergoes a profound metamorphosis to assume the adult form. Sea urchins have some economic significance. The roe is considered a delicacy, especially in Mediterranean regions and Japan, and burrowing species may damage sea walls. Sea urchins also are used in embryological studies. Sea urchins are classified in the phylum
Echinodermata Echinodermata [Gr.,=spiny skin], phylum of exclusively marine bottom-dwelling invertebrates having external skeletons of calcareous plates just beneath the skin.
..... Click the link for more information. , class Echinoidea, subclass Regularia.
sea urchin
Slate-pencil urchin (Heterocentrotus mammillatus)
(credit: Douglas Faulkner)
Any of about 700 species (class Echinoidea) of
echinoderms found worldwide. Sea urchins have a globular body covered with movable, sometimes poisonous, spines up to 12 in. (30 cm) long. Pores along the internal skeleton accommodate slender, extensible, often sucker-tipped tube feet. Sea urchins live on the seafloor and use their tube feet or spines to move about. The mouth is on the body's underside; teeth are extruded to scrape algae and other food from rocks. Some species excavate hiding places in coral, rock, or even steel. Roe of some species is eaten in certain countries.
sea urchin any echinoderm of the class Echinoidea, such as Echinus esculentus (edible sea urchin), typically having a globular body enclosed in a rigid spiny test and occurring in shallow marine waters
sea urchin [
′sē ‚ər·chən]
(invertebrate zoology)
A marine echinoderm of the class Echinoidea; the soft internal organs are enclosed in and protected by a test or shell consisting of a number of close-fitting plates beneath the skin.
Sea Urchin any one invertebrate of the class Echinoidea of the phylum Echinodermata. The body, measuring as much as 30 cm, is covered with rows of skeletal plates that form a shell and bear movable spines and pedicellariae. Sea urchins of the subclass Regularia have a mouth with a masticatory apparatus (Aristotle’s lantern) for scraping algae off rocks. Those of the subclass Irregularia, who feed on detritus, have no masticatory apparatus. Sea urchins are benthic crawling or burrowing animals, moving by means of tube feet and spines. They are dioecious. A stage in their development is the plankton larva, or the echinopluteus; some are viviparous. More than 800 species of sea urchins are extant; there are about 40 species in seas of the USSR. They are widespread in oceans and seas with normal salinity at depths up to 7 km. Some are valuable commercially since the eggs are edible. Fossils of sea urchins have been found in Ordovician deposits.
REFERENCES
Zhizn’ zhivotnykh, vol. 2. Moscow, 1968.
Hyman, L. H. The Invertebrates, vol. 4. New York-London, 1955.
)