Echinus melo is a globular sea urchin of up to 17 cm in diameter. Spines are
scarce and of two types: short thin greenish-yellow spines, called secondary spines, and long thin olive-green
spines with whitish tips, called primary spines. Primary spines are rarer: they are laid out in a single row
on the interambulacral plates. Test colour is variable: pale yellow with orange spots or sometimes greenish
yellow.
It lives on rocks from 25 m to depths down to several hundred meters, but it is abondant around 40 m deep.
It is found in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean from the Azores to the Bay of Biscay.
Phylum Echinodermata, class Echinoidea, order Echinoida, family Echinidae, Echinus melo Lamarck, 1816.
Test: Rigid skeleton of sea urchins.
Interambulacral plates: Test plates placed between the ambulacral plates.
Ambulacral plates: Test plates pierced by numerous holes through which tube-feet can extend.
Tube foot: Tube-shaped element ending by a sucker-disc used to attach to subtratum.
Photograph: © William Desmartin. Published with author's kind permission.
Echinus melo, Pointe de Locca, Corsica, South of France. Depth 25 meters.
Text: Anne Bay-Nouailhat © 2006-2008.
Translation: Anne Bay-Nouailhat © 2007-2008.
