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 › Abécédaire › Black sea urchin
Mediterranean species :

Black sea urchin

You can recognise it from its flat shape
Did you know ?
When sea urchins graze, they sometimes strip all the algae from a rocky area and turn it into a desert!

It can be distinguished from the edible sea urchin because it is flatter, always black with thinner spines and its tube feet do not have any suckers. Unlike the purple sea urchin, it cannot right itself if it is turned on its back. The test can be 5 to 6cm with spines that are 3cm long. It is a grazing herbivore and is not edible. It is found all over the Western Mediterranean, in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas and from Gibraltar to Senegal in the Atlantic. It lives on rocky bottoms down to 50m deep.

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Phylum: Echinodermata
Class: Echinoidea
Order: Stirodonta
Family: Arbaciidae
Scientific name: Arbacia lixula

French: Oursin noir
Spanish: Erizo negro
Italian: Riccio nero
German: Schwarzer Seeige

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Institut océanographique Paul Ricard
Île des Embiez - 83140 Six-Fours-les-Plages
Tél. +33 (0)4 94 34 02 49
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