Archive for the 'Echinoderms' Category
You may not notice it, but, sea urchins have very thin tube-like suction cup feet, just, like their close relative the sea stars. These feet are useful to grasp onto pieces of seashells, peebles or seaweed to disguise the sea urchin from other near by predators.
Click on this post to see what eats a sea [...]
Great question Travis! Sea stars can live up to 35 years in the wild! It really depends on the species. Their wild habitat includes coral reefs, rocky coasts, sandy bottom, or even the deep deep sea of all the world’s oceans. There are approximately 1,800 different types of sea stars.
They have been known to live [...]
Nope. The classic common name is very misleading. Scientists and environmental educators are transitioning their language to seastar when referring to this animal – because, well, it just is not a fish.
The seastar is in the same family as the sea urchin, sea cucumber, sand dollar, and a few others that all have these things [...]
This is going to gross you out. Seastars grip their prey (bivalves, such as clams or oysters) with their suction feet and pry them apart to eat the animal inside. Here is the gross part…once the bivalve shell is opened the seastars’ stomach comes out of its little star shaped body to then absorb the [...]
The spines of the sea urchins are most certainly there for protection, however, urchins still have many predators.
For instance, sea gulls love to grab them at low tide at pick away at them high upon the rocks.
Crabs have a feast with the urchins by picking away at their spine to get to the inside [...]
