Purple Sea Urchin

Strongylocentrotus purpuratusRed

The Purple Sea Urchin is a spiny echinoderm of eastern Pacific kelp beds and rocky shallows, using a calcareous test and Aristotle's lantern jaws to crop algae from rock and fronds. Its color shifts with depth, age, and light, but the armored, spine-studded look stays unmistakable in the underwater glow of a kelp forest.

CommonPurple Sea Urchin

HP 2550ATK 2400DEF 2600Level 0/10

In battle

HP: 2,550
ATK: 2,400
DEF: 2,600
Energy cost: 2

Passive Skills

When receiving a hit, send a counter attack equal to 100% of the animal's attack and ignore 30% of the enemy's defense
Before 3 hits received, DEF +80%
Immune to bleeding
For each energy point attached to the animal, ATK +20%
Reduce damage taken by 20%

Attack Effects

Self: DEF +30% (1 round)

Overview

The animal behind the card

Tube feet and a water vascular system let it cling in surge while spines fend off many predators, though sea otters and large fish still hunt it hard. It spawns into the water, where eggs and sperm meet in the plankton, and larvae drift before settling to the bottom and beginning the slow work of a grazer.

Warming and shifting predators have sometimes allowed booms that outpace algal regrowth, with knock-on effects for fisheries and whole nearshore webs. The Purple Sea Urchin is a keystone browser, and a lesson that rocky-shore ecology can pivot on a few very determined herbivores.