▲ Sea urchin.
Why does the sea urchin grow like this? Why is it so delicious?
"Ass to the Sky"
Don't look at the sea urchin as a ball, it is also divided into positive and negative sides. The side that sticks to the ground is called the "mouth face" because the mouth grows on this side. The soaring side, called the "anti-mouth side", is actually its "ass".
▲ Sea urchin group
Many people love to eat sea urchins, but few people have ever seen sea urchins eat. Because its mouth is under the body, it is invisible. But if you open its shell, an exquisite chewing organ is revealed. It is made up of dozens of small bones, very mechanical, like a delicate lantern.
▲ Schematic diagram of the structure of the orthographic sea urchin.
More than two thousand years ago, Aristotle described its structure in the Zoology, so this part has a particularly interesting name: "Aristotle Lantern", which is also referred to as "Lantern" in taxonomy. The lantern is connected with 5 teeth, usually the teeth are exposed, you can chew food, if you eat hard, the lantern will also stick out.
▲ The middle part is the Aristotle lantern.
When the sea urchin is opened, it is full of yellow, which is its reproductive glands, which have the functions of reproduction and storage of nutrients. Rich in a large amount of protein, polysaccharides and high unsaturated fatty acids, it is very fat.
The yellow color of the sea urchin is tongue-shaped, and the entrance is fresh and sweet, and it is known as the most delicious "tongue" in the world. Some say that this touch is comparable to a "fragrant French tongue kiss".
▲ Steamed sea urchins
Buy sea urchins do not have to pick like crabs, just buy them directly, every one has yellow. As for the difference between the yellow of the male and female, it is said that the male yellow is light, the female yellow is dark, the male yellow is harder and firmer, and the female yellow is easy to be paralyzed.
Chinese eat sea urchins, in addition to eating raw, but also popular "sea urchin steamed egg" practice, the egg liquid into the sea urchin shell, steamed into the custard. However, in this way of eating, the faint taste of sea urchin is completely covered by eggs. Sea urchin yellow should still be eaten raw, and no seasoning can be added to feel the satisfaction of the mixture of fat and flavored amino acids.
▲ A swimming sea urchin.
There are more than 850 kinds of sea urchins, often eaten there are seven or eight kinds, the flavor is different, purple sea urchin is light, red sea urchin is rich; also according to the season distinction, there is a "winter yellow summer purple" saying, winter is suitable for eating yellow sea urchin, summer is suitable for eating purple.
The sea urchin used to eat is a more common one called horse dung sea urchin. This is not an insulting nickname, its official Chinese name is called horse dung sea urchin. It was up to it to get the name: it was the same size and size as horse dung, and the spines were green, very short, and growing haphazardly, like the undigested grass stalks in horse dung. I look like this, and I can't blame others.
▲ Horse dung sea urchin.
Don't look at it called such a hard-to-say name, the taste is very delicious, yellow is particularly full. Open a horse dung sea urchin, yellow in the body into a five-pointed star, the color of orange and yellow bright, grains are clear. Whether it is made into sushi or rice bowl, it is thick and luscious, compared to the hard-won yellow in the hard shell of the crab, this whole "tongue" is under the belly, making people shout "Enjoy!" ”
▲ Qingdao farmers take advantage of the low tide to pick up sea urchins to prevent sea urchins from devouring sea plants and damaging sea cucumbers and abalone.
The diet of sea urchins varies. Like horse dung sea urchin, I love to eat kelp. People who used to keep kelp had a headache with sea urchins, and they must get rid of them when they see them. Unexpectedly, later the sea urchin became a more sought after seafood, and everyone began to raise sea urchins exclusively. The newly hatched larvae do not resemble sea urchins at all, floating in the water. After raising it in the sink to the appearance of a small thorn ball, it is placed in the shallow sea for free range. Farmers dig several large trenches in the shallow sea so that the walls of the ditches are covered with kelp for sea urchins to eat. The feng shui took turns, and the kelp was transformed from protected babies into feed.
The right one can eat, the crooked one can't
Edible sea urchins, both male and female, have 5 reproductive glands; their anuses grow in the center of the opposite mouth, that is, the mouth is facing the ground, and the "ass" is soaring. Common sea urchins are orthogonal sea urchins, orthographic, of course, the body is very "positive"; they are very regular flat spherical, the body is a five-pointed star-shaped radiative symmetry.
Find a sea urchin shell whose thorn has fallen off, hold it backlit, and a five-petaled "flower" will appear on the sea urchin shell. These five lobes are called "step band areas" and are composed of hollowed-out holes that can transmit light.
When the urchin is alive, soft tube feet protrude from the hole, and they can walk, climb, and grasp food. The opaque area between the step band areas is called the "interval band area", which is a tumor process, and the hard spines grow on these tumors. This radiation symmetry is the same as that of its relative starfish.
▲ Looking at the sea urchin in the backlight, the "petal" part of the light transmission is the step band area; the part between the "petals" is the interval band area.
I have to say that the sea urchin is a very interesting special case: generally for seafood, inland people only know what it looks like after death, and do not know what it looks like when it is alive; and sea urchins, inland people know what it looks like when it is alive, and really stuff a thornless sea urchin shell into them, and many people don't know it.
The empty shell of the sea urchin that pierces the light, revealing various colors and patterns, is actually a very good natural collection, so you can pay attention to it when you go to the beach.
▲ The empty shell of the sea urchin that pierces off the light is a very good collection.
There are about 850 species of sea urchins in the world, but most of them are inedible. These sea urchins have 2 to 4 reproductive glands, which are too small for people to eat, and are also called "crooked sea urchins".
As for the "crooked sea urchin", it is naturally crooked. Their mouths are not in the center of the body, and the shell is not very round, often a flat piece, and the spines are short and dense. After they die, the spines fall off clean, and the shell is like a white biscuit lying on the beach, with a distinct five-petaled "flower" on its back, which is their step zone.
▲ There are many flattened members in the crooked sea urchin, and the empty shell is like a coin, so it is called sand money. The picture shows the fossil of Sha Qian.
Crooked sea urchins are not as common as orthographic sea urchins. I wrote in "Notes on Sea Mistake Map 2" that in 2014, when I went to Hepu, Guangxi Province, to inspect the seagrass bed, I walked in the shallow sea water and felt that there was a flat object under my feet. Stand still and wait for the water to clear up, and it turns out that there is a crooked sea urchin everywhere on the sand!
▲ Flat cobwebbed sea urchin, a crooked sea urchin.
"Crooked sea urchins look like when they grow thorns: it's not so much a thorn as it is a hair." Each thorn is also 1 mm long, and it is laid on the body in a layer, and it is furry, and it does not tie the hand at all, which is very cute. Put it down, and it walked silently with those thorns, sticking to the sand and crawling farther away, like a sweeping robot..."
This "thorn head" is a bit of a provocation
The spines of sea urchins are generally longer, making people afraid to touch them. Some sea urchins are poisonous and cannot be touched; the common edible sea urchins are not poisonous, and can be safely held on the hand, as long as they are not squeezed hard.
Although it looks very bad, in fact, many sea urchins are more "instigated" than you, especially non-toxic sea urchins.
For example, the "Mei's long sea urchin" hides in a hole in the coral reef, which often coincides with the size of their bodies, like a tailor-made one. In fact, the hole was dug by the sea urchin itself. They start digging from an early age, secreting acid and corroding the coral reef's calcium carbonate and softening it, while digging holes with their own thorns. When it grows up, the hole is dug.
▲ There seems to be light shooting out of the body of Mei's long sea urchin, which is actually an illusion caused by body color.
Mei's long sea urchin has been "home" in its own hole almost all its life, eating food pushed by the sea, and swinging with satisfaction the bald thorns at the tip. Like a man with a controlled knife, instead of choosing to run amok in the countryside, he used these knives to dig a cellar and drill into it, watch TV, and eat potato chips.....
Another type of non-toxic sea urchin is the "white-spined tri-rift sea urchin". Its thorns are red, black and white, which is particularly beautiful, commonly known as "flower bile". It doesn't shrink all the time, daring to climb everywhere. But it will carry a lot of "garbage" on the body, such as seaweed, sand, broken coral, etc., and from time to time it will update the carry on the body.
▲ White-spined tri-rift sea urchin.
The reason for the garbage on the back of the white-spined three-lobed sea urchin has not yet been determined. Scientists have proposed several hypotheses, including the defense predator theory, the prevention of dehydration theory, the shielding of wind and waves, the resistance to sunlight radiation and so on.
▲ This sea urchin not only carries other garbage, but also carries an empty shell of the same kind.
The poisonous sea urchin is much more "crazy", also written in the "Sea Mistake Map Notes 2", I encountered a kind of "thorn-crowned sea urchin" when I was snorkeling on The Koh Lipe Island in Thailand. Its spines are extremely long, two or three times the size of the body, and stretch out in all directions, as if it is afraid of not being able to pierce people. And the number is extremely large, and the dense place can be covered with the seabed, and everyone does not hide or hide, and walks on the seabed in a big way.
▲ The arrogant appearance of the sea urchin with the crown of thorns.
"It was low tide, the water was shallow, and I was floating on the surface of the sea, skimming 'above them'. Looking down at them, their stomachs only a short distance from those pitch-black thorns. The sea urchins felt the fluctuations and adjusted their stings to align themselves upwards. It's a really amazing feeling. ”
Such a crazy sea urchin is not small in toxicity; once it is caught, it is like a fire. Moreover, there are barbs on the spines of the crowned sea urchin, which are broken inside after being pierced into the skin, and it is difficult to pick them out, and the more they pick, the more swollen they are. As long as there is no serious allergic reaction, it is best not to pull it. The locals did it by slapping the wound with the soles of their shoes, crushing the thorn, and then ignoring it, and after a few days, the skin around the thorn would harden, and then the thorn would mysteriously disappear, possibly decomposing. As short as a week, as long as a month, the hardened skin will regain its elasticity.
▲ Sea urchin shell.
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