Mar 06
![Diadema setosum [CC-BY-SA-3.0 Steve Cook]](https://www.polypompholyx.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Diadema_setosum-224x300.jpg)
It’s amazing how informative an anus can be. Take this sea urchin. The orange pucker in the middle of the spines is its “around-the-bum”, although zoologists would insist on writing that in Greek as “periproct“. The bright orange ring-piece is characteristic of this species, and marks it out as Diadema setosum, rather than any of …
Feb 28
![Pseudocolochirus violaceus [CC-BY-2.0 Alex Lomas]](https://www.polypompholyx.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Pseudocolochirus_violaceus-300x224.jpg)
If sea cumbers are an example of intelligent design, then God – sorry, an unspecified supernatural intelligence that somehow doesn’t infringe on the First Amendment – needs to lay off the acid. Echinoderms are what you get when you give evolution the number 5 and half a billion years to piss around. You’ve simply got to love any animal …