Who am I?

We first saw these beautiful creations at Rooney Point in Hervey Bay, immensely fragile structures shaped like an animal’s skull, but adorned with a five petalled flower that made me think of the sand dollars we collected as kids up north. When we stumbled upon a live one of these, mooching its bristly way through some muddy sand in the Whitsundays, the name Hairy Testicle was suggested, and enthusiastically adopted.

Our fabulous new book on the critters of the GBR , The Great Barrier Reef: A Queensland Museum Discovery Guide, has given us a prettier name. These are heart urchins, related to the round bumpy sea urchins we’re familiar with, and to the sand dollars.