Sea urchins are an ancient and diverse group of invertebrates that, with the noteworthy exception of Sandy Hook Bay, have filled many niches in the world's oceans. There are about 800 species worldwide; interestingly, more than appear in their long fossil record. In many years of beachcombing in New Jersey, I can remember finding fragments of them only a few times, usually after inlets were dredged. That is until the winter of 2001. To my surprise, kids and colleagues began presenting me with sizable pieces of urchin tests collected on the ocean beaches. Some even had spines attached.

Urchin tests: Ventral (Left) and Dorsal (Right)

I assured the curious that living ones were not found locally and undoubtedly these were carried north from Shark River Inlet (the nearest place I've seen a few live specimens) by littoral drift. I speculated that dredging of the river; the beach renourishment projects and the covering of groins to our south were contributing to the increased abundance of these dried specimens at Sandy Hook. Also, because of the counter-clockwise circulation pattern in the bay, Sandy Hook is at the receiving end of runoff and anything unpleasant that washes out from the Hudson and Raritan rivers.

All appear to be the purple urchin, which is common around the rocky shores of Woods Hole on the warm side of Cape Cod, but not in our area. Although it ranges from the Cape to the Caribbean, Kenneth Gosner describes its distribution as: "peculiar...uncommon in the southern part of the Virginian province" with "but one Chesapeake record. Nevertheless it occurs locally in the West Indies and Florida."

As more specimens were brought in, I was forced to modify my theory that the burying of the sand-stopping groins and the latest "solution" to the coastal erosion problems here -- notching of the landward sections of others to facilitate beach drift, were also facilitating the northward drift of this latest beach find. Coal spilled from a barge grounded in the 1960's in Spring Lake (south of Shark River) took less than a year to tumble north in the surf, 18-miles to Sandy Hook - so it's a reasonable hypothesis, right?

Almost daily, puzzled beachcombers began bringing fragments in and they were becoming impossible to ignore, but I stuck to my guns, making a mental note to look for live ones during summer snorkeling trips to the few remaining unburied groins south of Sandy Hook.

Well, to no one's surprise around here, I had been wrong all along. On April 27, (2001) we were trawling in 50-feet of water off the tip of Sandy Hook, an area of sandy bottom and strong currents --- not what I would consider prime urchin real estate. Remarkably, we brought up live urchins - dozens of them; ranging in width from one-to-two inches. I was forced to get serious about the situation and started surveying the real experts -- local fishermen and divers.

In August, the captain of a commercial dive boat, who earlier had volunteered to collect some small rock specimens from an offshore work site for identification of their origins, left me a message to: "Come down to the dock to pick up your rocks." Of course when I got there, to his amusement, I needed help dragging a veritable boulder to my car. He'd retrieved it from a navigation hazard the fishermen call Ambrose Ridge, which was being removed by a dredge ("They're wrecking ALL of our fishing spots!").

Eureka! Among the patches of fouling growth of young mussels and bryozoans, I found a tiny urchin.

Urchin's ventral side against the aquarium glass.

So here we have another Maritime mystery ...where have they been hiding all this time? There is little firm, mussel-covered hard bottom here (the urchin's preferred habitat). All I'm aware of are a few small uncharted wrecks (Known only to about a zillion serious bass fishermen crowding the narrow Sandy Hook channel -- most of them anchored over their secret spots; many within casting distance of each other, and all of them forcing New York harbor pilots earn their keep.)

I also contacted Dr. Andy Draxler of the National Marine Fisheries Service who organizes a divers' survey, and with others who collect in the bay; and I doubt we all have over-looked these conspicuous creatures in the past. Is the purple urchin a new resident of the bay, or re-colonizing old haunts? It's difficult to tell, but the urchin is certainly a welcome addition to our faunal assemblage at Sandy Hook.

When you begin to take a closer look at any sea creature, it is always remarkable what we know about them, but also, what needs to be learned. The purple urchin is known to scientists as Arbacia punctulata. The Latin dictionary informs me that Arbacia is from "cap" and Arbaces - the ancient king of Media. Punctulate, the diminutive of puncture refers to points and small spots (in this case associated with the urchin's spines). With little artistic license, the urchin, with its symmetrical array of erect spines that has attracted the attention of Mediterranean artists designing coins and emblems for centuries, looks like a king's crown. (Or I should say, the crown looks like an urchin!)

The urchins have also attracted my attention and appreciation over the years. When I kept saltwater aquaria, I used to dive at Shark River to collect these old friends because they are good indicators of water quality in the tanks. (Although some species exhibit a tolerance to low-level sewage pollution in the water, they cannot tolerate low oxygen levels.) If the urchins did not find the aquarium conditions suitable, their inch-long spines would droop quite noticeably. Perhaps this is a clue to their recent appearance in the area.

Years ago, when NOAA biologists at Sandy Hook were intensively studying sludge dumpsites off New Jersey, I recall one of them (Jack Pearce) speculating that the absence of live sand dollars some distance from the sites might be a clue that the biological effects of the sludge were not as localized as presumed. No doubt there are many factors to consider regarding the recent appearance of the sand dollar's cousin, but might changing water conditions be one of them?

Dead and fossil sand dollars from New Jersey

Mark Twain reminds us that, when we look back on our lives, we won't regret the things we've done; we'll regret the things we haven't done. I regret not taking better notes every time I dipped a net in Sandy Hook Bay over the years. Our resident echinoderm, the starfish, is definitely cyclical in its abundance here. So is its prey: mussels. I have never seen them as abundant as in the early 1980's when we would often bring in a trawl net full of them, and two years later, be hard-pressed to find even one.

Perhaps the urchins are riding an even longer wave than their starfish relatives and the populations fluctuate in a pattern we have yet to recognize. Of course, after all these years; it is also possible I've just been looking in the wrong place! Recent research on West Coast urchins indicates that some species may live well over a century; and if the data is correct, some individuals there were alive in 1805 when Lewis and Clark arrived in Oregon!

Generations of embryology students have cut their teeth on urchin eggs. In Maine, we used to anaesthetise their northern relative, the green urchin, because specimens immediately would respond and release gametes for laboratory observations. The fertilized eggs are easy to keep and observe in their early developmental stage, and since the urchin is so common in those cool waters, it is a cheap source of laboratory material.

The green urchin is a favorite of mine for a few other reasons: ALS diver George Edwards claims it has the longest name of any common local invertebrate -- Strongylocentrotus droehbachiensis -- and I'll believe him and won't bother searching for a longer one until the day I can pronounce it three-times-fast. Their spines are a major constituent of the few beaches, like Sand Beach at Acadia National Park, to be found north of Portland, Maine. Also, over the years they have supported a number of fishermen who dive for them, and this is always a good thing.

Native Americans harvested urchins for thousands of years, but there was little commercial exploitation until the 1970's. Before that they were considered a pest in California kelp beds and killed by the thousands. Between 1971 and 1981 the annual catch there climbed from a few hundred pounds to 25 million pounds, and peaked at 52 million pounds in 1988 when urchins became one of California's most valuable "fisheries." Urchins also have been harvested commercially by divers in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. (And of course for my aquarium in New Jersey.)

They are collected for the roe (Uni) and exported to the orient where they are cherished for their taste and reputation as (What else?) an aphrodisiac. To stimulate his artistic mind, it is said that Salvador Dali would eat urchins a la Catalane, in a chocolate sauce, before going to sleep. Both species are edible and once, in Maine, following the instructions of writer Paul G. Howes to "knock off the top of the shell" of a few, we scooped out the eggs and ate them raw. (Much to the consternation of our cook.)

I didn't find the snack especially tasty, nor did I feel particularly creative or frisky, but they are fascinating creatures nonetheless. Donald Zinn informs us that "before the time of Pliny" urchins were used as an antidote for certain poisonous plants. Pliny also reported that in the Levant, fossil spines were licked to break up gall stones. In England, "Shepherd's Crowns" (Dome-shaped Cretaceous fossil urchins, reminiscent of a bishop's crown) guarded against lightning; and witches coveted the stones because the five-point design characteristic of most Echinoderms, represented a Pentagram. Today, urchins continue to furnish us with food and decorations (including an ornamental cover for my bathroom night-light) and of course, captivate biologists and beachcombers.

"Shepherd's Crown"
A fossil echinoderm from Cretaceous deposits, Colts Neck, NJ.

For the curious:

Collins, Henry H. Complete Field Guide to North American Wildlife
Gosner, Kenneth (Guide to the Identification of Marine and Estuarine Invertebrates
Grant, U. S., IV, and L.G. Hertlein (1938) The west American Cenozoic Echinoidea
Hill, Paul J. and Mavis. The Edible Sea
Howes, Paul Griswold. Handbook for the Curious (1936)
Zinn, Donald J. Handbook for Beach Strollers