Severely damaged sea urchin shows astonishing resilience
Tuesday, June 2, 2020 - 07:50
in Biology & Nature
Together with his colleague Christian Neumann of the Natural History Museum in Berlin, Senckenberg scientist Max Wisshak documented a sea urchin's fight for survival on the ocean floor off Spitsbergen. In their study, recently published in the scientific journal Polar Biology, the researchers show that despite traumatic injuries—more than one third of its shell and several vital organs had been lost—the marine creature from the genus Strongylocentrotus continued to move along the seabed for at least 43 hours and even evaded an attack by a large crab. The case documents the sea urchins' high potential for regeneration, which developed in the course of their evolution.