๐ฆ Animal world ๐ฌ Sea animals
The sea urchin
๐ In short
The sea urchin is a small, round sea animal covered in long moving spines. It lives on the seabed among the rocks and is related to the starfish. It comes in many colors: black, purple, red and green.
๐คฉ Did you know?
- There are hundreds of kinds of sea urchins.
- Some sea urchins live more than 100 years.
- The sand dollar is related to the sea urchin, but it's flat like a disc.
- A sea urchin can move its spines in every direction.
๐ Find out more
๐ A shell under the spines
Under a sea urchin's skin is a hard round shell made of little plates fitted together, with the spines attached to it. When the urchin dies, its pretty patterned shell is left behind.
๐ Lots of little feet
Between a sea urchin's spines are tiny thin feet with suckers on the end, which it walks slowly with and uses to hold on to rocks so the waves don't carry it away.
๐ก A mouth underneath
A sea urchin's mouth is on its underside, with five strong teeth it uses to scrape algae off rocks and eat them.
๐ฏ Careful when swimming!
Sea urchin spines are sharp and can stick in your foot and hurt a lot. So it's best to wear special shoes when walking among rocks on the beach.
๐ธ More pictures
๐งฉ Test yourself
1 The sea urchin is related to:
2 What does a sea urchin eat?
3 Some sea urchins live more than ?? years.
4 Which picture shows โThe sea urchinโ?
๐ฆ Discover more
๐ท Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons
- Nhobgood (talk) Nick Hobgood ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
- Esko Jรคntti ยท Public domain
- Nina Matthews from Australia ยท CC BY 2.0
- Brocken Inaglory ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
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