In the charity shop: Sea urchin skull x

I found 2 of these in the charity shop today. Too pretty to pass up on. They are English Channel sea urchin skulls. I researched that it when I got home, because my children will ask when they get home from school. Thats its mouth on top and its teeth.

Sea urchins, along with other starfish and sea cucumbers, are called as echinoderms. All echinoderms are symmetric, which means their basic body plan is a circle with five points radiating outward. This is not immediately obvious in a live sea urchin, because the five points have become folded and fused into a ball.

They may not look it, but echinoderms occupy the closest genetic makeup to our own. Humans share 70 percent of their genes with sea urchins and exhibit the same pattern of embryonic development. (Flies, for example, only share 40 percent of our genes and have a completely different type of development.)

We are all connected, and yes even to these. x