Mespilia globulis
Picture taken January 2001, Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera, full flash

Purchased: January 6, 2001

This is an awesome short spined sea urchin with beautiful colors. This picture was taken the day it was added to the tank at night and is thus slightly out of focus.

This sea urchin is an excellent grazer and will not destroy your coralline algae. Many urchins eat coralline algae down to the bare rocks and leave stripe marks of bare rock in their path. Coralline grazing is a good thing as it opens up space for new growth. However, over grazing can make a tank look terrible. I think this urchin is a nice compromise.

This urchin was under two inches in size when purchased. The picture shows the urchin going up the side tank glass.

It is very common for this urchin to place strange objects on its back such as small rocks, sand, coral frags, colonial polyps. In fact if you have this urchin and it does not do that, it is a sign of an unhealthy urchin.

Mespilia globulis
Picture taken February 2002, Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera, no flash

I now have two of these urchins. Over the past year these urchins have been model reef citizens. They have done a great job at grazing, opening new areas for coralline to grow and not knocking down any corals. I've been considering getting a third one.

Mespilia globulis
Picture taken February 2002, Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera, Tiffen +7 lens, no flash

This is a macro shot of the mouth and grinding teeth of the urchin. They operate just as you'd think with them opening and closing scraping coralline as they go along.

If you look carefully enough you can also see many of the small sucker discs that the urchin uses to hold onto the glass.

Mespilia globulis
Picture taken September 2002, Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera, no flash

This was really neat to watch. This was the best picture I was able to get. I'm not sure if the urchin was releasing sperm or eggs. In the picture it looks like sperm but in person the smoke thinned out into little egg like sacks, transparent and very tiny. After a few inches the tiny egg like objects zoomed away in the tank current. My other blue tux urchin showed no interest, was not near it, did not head to the upper part of the tank... it totally ignored it.

After taking this picture my batteries died... typical. I was not able to find replacements in time. Within 5 minutes the event was over and the urchin headed lower into the tank.

On September 4th, 2002 I noticed both urchins at the water surface, partly sticking out of the water. They both proceeded to spawn. And again, I was without my camera handy to take pictures.