The sun hangs low over the cliff-top, forming a cracked mirror of light across the breezeblown sea. I pick my way through a stormdrift of kelp to a large pool. At its centre are boulders coated in pink algae and fringed with iridescent Irish moss seaweed. I gently turn a rock. As I hoped, this is a haven for echinoderms: marine invertebrates such as starfish, urchins and sea cucumbers. They are gathered here like a taxonomical illustration: cushion starfish; brittle stars with combtoothed arms, and a couple of sea cucumbers unfurling feathery black tentacles. In the middle, crowned in prickles, is the creature I have come to see: an urchin.
While all echinoderms have spiny skin, sea urchins (historically known as sea hedgehogs) interpret this more literally than most, with their…
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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2024