What happend to this Urchin??

[Firediver]

Hello I dive the Bay of Fundy and urchins around here are usually Green... This one was found during a dive at Deer Island Point Camp Ground in New Brunswick.

Why is this one red???

 

[adshepard]

Deer Island is one of my favorite dive areas.

Anyway I suspect that the urchin had been consuming a great deal of red plant material. The Passamaquoddy area is full of reddish/maroon colored algae which the urchins can graze upon. That's just my guess.

I'll be diving up there this coming weekend should all goa s planned.

DSDO

Alan

 

[Firediver]

I will be there as well this weekend. See you there. Type of food the urchins been eating was my guess..... Oh.. Alan, also found an all white nudibranch on the drift dive at deer island.

 

[archman]

looks like a Pacific coast Strongylocentrotus. I thought you new england folks had species this colour. If not, maybe it's an exotic. That would stink.

 

[Firediver]

hmmmm... I think it would be too cold over here for anything from the pacific.....but ya never know...

 

[adshepard]

looks like a Pacific coast Strongylocentrotus. I thought you new england folks had species this colour. If not, maybe it's an exotic. That would stink.

North of Cape Cod the green urchin is the endemic species. South of Cape Cod you get the purple species. Sorry but too lazy to look up the scientific names of each.

DSDO

Alan

 

[Firediver]

So this little guy is out of his element

 

[diverberr]

I fished urchins here for a few years. I've seen red ones in other places, but this is the first I've heard of one in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.

Al.

 

[drbill]

The green urchin is Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis (at one time the longest scientific name). It has been nearly 40 years since I collected them back in the intertidal and subtidal of New Hampshire. I'm not aware of color changes due to diet in that species, but it does happen in other organisms like abalone so it is a possibility.

On this coast we have both the purple (S. purpuratus) and red (S. franciscanus) which are congeners (members of the same genus). I don't see any change in coloration in our two species, but then I'm partially color blind!

 

[MarkH]

hmmmm... I think it would be too cold over here for anything from the pacific.....but ya never know...

Over here, we think you guys have warm water.