Toxopneustes pileolus
| Flower urchin | |
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| Flower urchin from Okinawa, Japan | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Echinodermata |
| Class: | Echinoidea |
| Superorder: | Echinacea |
| Order: | Camarodonta |
| Infraorder: | Temnopleuridea |
| Family: | Toxopneustidae |
| Genus: | Toxopneustes |
| Species: | T. pileolus |
| Binomial name | |
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Toxopneustes pileolus (Lamarck, 1816) |
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Toxopneustes pileolus, commonly known as the flower urchin, is a widespread and commonly encountered species of sea urchin from the Indo-West Pacific. It is considered highly dangerous, as it is capable of delivering extremely painful and medically significant stings when touched. It inhabits coral reefs, seagrass beds, and rocky or sandy environments at depths of up to 90 m (295 ft). It feeds on algae, bryozoans, and organic detritus.
Its common name is derived from its numerous and distinctively flower-like pedicellariae, which are usually pinkish-white to yellowish-white in color with a central purple dot. It possesses short and blunt spines, though these are commonly hidden beneath the pedicellariae. The rigid "shell" (test) is a variegated deep red and gray in color, though in rare cases it may be greenish to light purple.
Toxopneustes pileolus is one of four species belonging to the genus Toxopneustes. It belongs to the family Toxopneustidae in the order Camarodonta. It was originally described as Echinus pileolus by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1816, in the second book of his Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres series. It was later used as the type species for the newly created genus Toxopneustes by the Swiss American biologist Louis Agassiz.
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