Biodiversity & Conservation

Sea potato - Echinocardium cordatum

Echinocardium cordatum

Image Keith Hiscock - Echinocardium cordatum dug up from coarse sediment. Image width ca XX cm.
Image copyright information

  • #
  • #
  • #
  • #
  • #
  • #
Distribution map

Echinocardium cordatum recorded (dark blue bullet) and expected (light blue bullet) distribution in Britain and Ireland (see below)

Why do the maps differ?

Sightings Have you seen Echinocardium cordatum?
If so please submit your record.

Echinocardium cordatum is not listed under any importance categories.

Taxonomy icon Taxonomy Taxon English term
Phylum Echinodermata Starfish, brittlestars, sea urchins & sea cucumbers
Class Echinoidea Sea urchins, heart urchins and sand dollars
Authority Pennant, 1777
Recent synonyms None
Map icon Recorded Distribution in Britain and Ireland Echinocardium cordatum is a common infaunal species found on sheltered sandy beaches, on all coasts of Britain and Ireland.
Habitat information icon Habitat information Echinocardium cordatum lives in a permanent burrow buried about 8 cm deep (to 15 cm) in sandy sediments. The species is found from the intertidal to the subtidal and offshore to about 200 m.
Text page icon Description A heart shaped urchin covered in a dense felt of yellow spines, mostly directed backwards. Yellow-brown in colour and usually 6 cm in length although can grow up to 9 cm long.
Identifying features
  • Heart shaped test 6-9 cm in length, fawn in colour, spines yellowish. In profile, highest point of test posterior to apical system.
  • Ambulacra rather broad and furrow like, extending down the sides of test, forming a stellate shape.
  • The two series of tube feet in the anterior ambulacrum each forms a double row as seen by the pore-pairs on the test.
  • Some large spines and their prominent tubercles scattered ventro-laterally on the anterior interambulacra.
Additional information icon Additional information The common name of this species refers to the brittle, brownish test, which is often found washed up on sheltered sandy shores.

Want to know more? more

This review can be cited as follows:

Jacqueline Hill 2008. Echinocardium cordatum. Sea potato. Marine Life Information Network: Biology and Sensitivity Key Information Sub-programme [on-line]. Plymouth: Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. [cited 31/07/2010]. Available from: <http://www.marlin.ac.uk/speciesinformation.php?speciesID=3228>