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Description: | The smooth streamlined calcite test (skeleton) of this heart-shaped echinoid shows that it burrowed in soft seabed sediments. In life, the test was covered with skin and short bristle like spines that helped the echinoid burrow. Micraster lived in an open marine environment where the salinity (salt content) of the sea water was normal and fed on food particles found in the sediment that it ate. Its mouth is on the flattened lower surface. This urchin is often known as the heart urchin because of its shape. | License: | http://www.imagine.org.uk/about/copyright/ | Rights holder: | Tyne & Wear Museums | Subjects: | fossils natural world | Source: | Tyne and Wear Imagine | Identifier: | http://www.imagine.org.uk/details/index.... | Go to resource |
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