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Purple Sea Urchin / Ježinac
Paracentrotus lividus
45.067, 13.6454
Field Notes
Description:
It has a circular, flattened greenish test with a diameter of up to seven centimetres. The test is densely clothed in long and sharply pointed spines that are usually purple but are occasionally other colours including dark brown, light brown and olive green. There are five or six pairs of pores on each ambulacral plate. The tube feet are in groups of 5 or 6, arranged in small arcs
Habitat:
Occurs in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean. It s is usually found just below low water mark at depths down to twenty metres and sometimes also in rock pools. It is found on rocks and boulders, and in seagrass meadows of Zostera marina and Posidonia oceanica. Although Cymodocea nodosa is a preferred food item, it is seldom found in meadows of this seagrass, perhaps because the shifting sand substrate does not suit it or because of pressure from predators. In fact it avoids soft substrates and can sometimes be found clustered on stones or shell "islands" surrounded by sand. In shallow or exposed waters it can use its mouth and spines to dig into soft rocks to create cavities into which it returns and in which it exactly fits. Where the urchins are numerous, the rock may be honeycombed by these excavations.
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