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The purple sea urchin, along with sea otters and abalones, is a prominent member of the kelp forest community. [18] The purple sea urchin also plays a key role in the disappearance of kelp forests that is currently occurring due to climate change; [19] when urchins completely eliminate kelp from an area, an urchin barren results.
Sphaerechinus granularis is a species of sea urchin in the family Toxopneustidae, commonly known as the violet sea urchin, [2] or sometimes the purple sea urchin (though the latter is also a common name for a Pacific sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus). Its range includes the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean. [1]
The purple sea urchin is spiny but not dangerous, and it can be held in hand with some care. Paracentrotus lividus is usually found just below low water mark at depths down to twenty metres and sometimes also in rock pools. It is found on rocks and boulders, and in seagrass meadows of Zostera marina and Posidonia oceanica.
It is one of the few sea urchin that can survive many hours out of water. [45] Sea urchins can be found in all climates, from warm seas to polar oceans. [40] The larvae of the polar sea urchin Sterechinus neumayeri have been found to use energy in metabolic processes twenty-five times more efficiently than do most other organisms. [46]
Meoma ventricosa, known by the common names cake urchin and red heart urchin, is a large species of sea urchin which lives in shallow waters in the Caribbean. It may reach a diameter of twenty centimeters and is covered in reddish-brown spines.
For more than a century, developmental biologists have valued the sea urchin as an experimental model organism. Sea urchin eggs are transparent and can be manipulated easily in the research laboratory. Their eggs can be easily fertilized and then develop rapidly and synchronously. [6] [7] For decades, the sea urchin embryo has been used to ...
Purple sea urchin can refer to one of several species of sea urchin: Arbacia punctulata , a species of sea urchin from the family Arbaciidae commonly known as the Atlantic purple sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus , a species of sea urchin in the family Parechinidae commonly known as the purple sea urchin
Echinometra mathaei grows to a test diameter of about 5 centimetres (2.0 in). The colour is quite variable but the test is usually a dark colour. The spines are sometimes green and purple with purple tips or entirely green with purple tips but this sea urchin can be distinguished from other species by a characteristic pale ring at the base of each spine.