Coelopleurus! The most gorgeous urchin you never heard of!

This week, I thought I'd share some gorgeous sea urchin love! Behold Coelopleurus! 

What's that? You've never HEARD of Coelopleurus??  Well, that's about right, I suppose. Its a distinctive looking enough species but it lives in slightly deeper water than is typical for most casual SCUBA divers or vacationing snorkelers..

Described by Louis Agassiz in 1840, Coelopleurus is a genus in the family Arbaciidae. There are about 14 known species. Eleven living species and four fossils.  

Coelopleurus is a deep-sea urchin, but on the shallow side, about 75 to 500 meters. They occur primarily in the tropics, but across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. 

Biology of these animals is poorly known. 

Based on one study on the gut contents of the Atlantic species Coelopleurus floridanus, we know that it is a possible predator of the octocoral Telesto, as well as bryozoans, worm tubes and sediment.  The octocoral Telesto looks like this and occurs in pretty shallow water. Learn more about it here.

It is also kind of unusual because it is one of the few sea urchins that displays secondary sex characteristics.. i.e., you can tell the females from the males when the males are spawning. 

You see that structure that the red arrows are pointing to?? 

That is the male "papillae". And in "C" you can see sperm being ejected into the water column. Yow!! This image is from a paper by Dave Pawson and John E. Miller in the Bulletin of Marine Science, 1979. 29(4): 581-586.  

Coelopleurus is unusual because it has these big, long curved spines BUT they are brilliantly colored in red and white!

But even MORE than that?? The tests (i.e., the skeletons) are brightly colored with these very striking patterns that seem to be rather variable..

Here is the test of Coelopleurus floridanus... 

But here's one that is considered the SAME species but a LARGER specimen.... Honestly.. it wasn't clear to me how important the patterns were to identifying each species.

The colors and patterns are embedded in the skeleton. So, if you drop them in a preservative like alcohol, the reds and purples, and etc. don't go away. They remain after death.

Here's another species. This one is from Japan... Coelopleurus undulatus from M. Shigei. 1986. The sea urchins of Sagami Bay. Biological Laboratory, Imperial Household, Maruzen Co. Ltd, Japan.

Gorgeous and amazing. 

Image from the NHM Echinoid database

Here is the most recently described species, Coelopleurus exquisitus which had the distinction of being described, in part from specimens purchased from the online auction house Ebay in 2006. 

Here again, is the very distinctive and unusual color pattern observed in this species... 

But wait! Coelopleurus also occurs in the fossil record!!  Here's Coelopleurus coronaformis from the Cenozoic of Mexico (< 66 million years ago) so pretty recent..

Here's Coelopleurus coronalis from the Eocene of Barcelona, Spain... 

New Sea Urchin species...on Ebay?????

So, according to two news articles from the U.K: One from the BBC and one from the UK Guardian a new species of the tropical deep-sea urchin Coelopleurus exquisitus from New Caledonia was described by Dr. Simon Coppard from the Natural History Museum in London based, at least, in part on specimens obtained from the online auction house Ebay!

(from the BBC)

Although the articles I read didn't indicate how much he paid, auctions for these animals apparently start in the $8 to $12 USD range and have been bid up to $138 USD (especially following the discovery that they were a new species).

(from the BBC)

Its been getting quite common for exotic sea urchin species to be put up for sale on ebay and there is now a considerable collector's community/market for sea urchins, including this (among others on ebay and elsewhere):

Echinoids.nl-An elaborate collector's database for sea urchin tests.

An amateur or non-professional community is a fact of life if you work on fossils or on seashells.

These organizations can do a lot of good towards forwarding the study of these fields but have also met with criticism and concern. Much of it based on the creation of a collector's or retail market for fossils or shells or ? which are the bread and butter of paleontologists and malacologists.

How does creating a collector's market for studying sea urchins affect conservation?

How does it affect the study of these organisms?

What is the net input of non-professional collectors to the academic study of sea urchins?

I guess, we'll have to wait and see.