This Clypeaster sea urchin crawled along the ocean bottom 15 million years ago in present-day Italy.
When alive, sea urchins were covered in hundreds of velvet-looking spines that helped it moved around the shallow ocean floor looking for food like crustacean larvae, copepods, and algae.
The five-star "flower" ovate on top of the body was a part of the respiratory systems that allowed them to breathe.
Type: Sea Urchin Species: Clypeaster reidii (Wright) Age: Miocene (15 million years ago) Locality: Helvetian Sand, Logudoro, Sardinia, Italy
