A sea potato

This is a sea potato. Sometimes called a heart urchin, and known scientifically as Echinocardium cordatum, it lives in offshore burrows in the sand.

A live sea potato has lots of short hair-like spines which lie flattened across its body. It looks for all the world like a hairy potato, hence its common name. This is the bald, fragile, skeletons of a dead urchin that I found washed up onto the beach after the recent storm. The smile-like opening at lower centre is the urchin's mouth, its much smaller anus is top centre.

#thursday #afternoon #january #sand #potato #urchin