Echinocardium flavescens


Echinocardium flavescens, sometimes called the yellow sea potato, is a species of sea urchin in the family Loveniidae, chiefly found in the northeast Atlantic region.

Description

Echinocardium flavescens is about long. It is yellow to the tube feet and has spines on the underside of the body. The frontal ambulacrum is not indented and there are larger spines in the interambulacral areas of the upper side of the test. Its labrum is long, reaching the second pair of ambulacral plates.

Distribution

Found in the waters off Great Britain, Ireland and associated islands.

Biology

Matures in early summer.

Ecology

Echinocardium flavescens buries itself about deep in coarse gravel in the sublittoral, up to depths of, sometimes associated with the sea cucumber Neopentadactyla mixta or the brittle star Ophiopsila annulosa.