Several sea urchins with one cracked open showing the orange tongues inside - Noppawat Tom Charoensinphon/Getty Images Sea urchin has been a staple of Japanese cuisine for hundreds of years, often ...

South of Tampa Bay, in Florida, wedged between a quiet neighborhood and a mangrove forest, custom-designed aquariums are home to thousands of sea-urchin larvae that tumble and drift through the water.

Consider the sea urchin. Specifically, the painted urchin: Lytechinus pictus, a prickly Ping-Pong ball from the eastern Pacific Ocean. The species is a smaller and shorter-spined cousin of the purple ...

With spikes as long as knitting needles, long-spined sea urchins may look like underwater villains, but their appetite for algae makes them the unsung heroes of Caribbean reefs. Courtesy of the ...