Cool Runnings Ocho Rios – Sea Urchins

Cool Runnings Ocho Rios offers daily trips sailing on the Caribbean Sea. But if you happen to find yourself out and about on your own in areas where the sea bottom has been left natural, you Sea urchin 1may find a bunch of sea urchins.
These were once known as sea hedgehogs and although we often find them just sitting on the sea bottom, they do move, very slowly. You can see their spines move around also.
Cool Runnings Ocho Rios alerts you to their presence, because to step on one is very painful.
For those who have never seen them before, see photo, (Diadema antillarum) the ones in Jamaica are black with long sharp spines, or grayish looking, with shorter spines. They actually do a very good job of eating the algae off the coral reefs, so looking out for them and not troubling them is a very good idea.
Image by NOAA on Wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diadema_antillarum_Flower_Garden_Banks.jpg
Cool Runnings in Mahogany Bay – Sea Creatures
The sea urchin has been around for a long time – since the Ordovician era, which lies between 485.4 and 443.8 million years ago.
Here is another type of sea urchin, (Tripneustes ventricosus), as you can see it is gray in color, but its sea urchin 2 hard shell or ‘test’ is black.
A sea urchin has two types of needles, the needle sharp type and then a ‘grasping’ type called Pedicellaria and it is these that actually release the venom when they seize an object, or someone’s foot that has inadvertently brushed past.
Photo of Tripneustes ventricosus by Nick Hobgood on Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tripneustes_ventricosus_(West_Indian_Sea_Egg)_edit.jpg
No sea urchin is going to be actively running out to attack you, they barely move, so it is our slight inattention that may end up in our brushing by one or stepping on one.
Cool Runnings Jamaica – What to do if you Step on a Sea Urchin

So, what do you do if you happen to brush by one, tweezers will take out the large spines, but here is some advice we did not know, as we usually follow what we learned from the fisherfolk, we found this particular advice on http://www.newhealthguide.org/Sea-Urchin-Sting.html, where it is suggested that shaving cream is used to cover the area and then to use a razor to gently scape the area to remove the pedicellaria. Then wash with soap and water. Other sites suggest using vinegar to dissolve the spines, as children our parents also used ammonia.
Cool Runnings Ocho Rios also knows that sea urchins are good to eat too, if you can only get past their spines, usually their eggs are eaten and the flesh of other species.
For much more information on sea urchins you will find it on the usual storehouse of information and for your convenience we have added the link here: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_urchin.