Urchins exhibit a great sense of nutritional wisdom. They’re able to select foods that help them grow fastest and produce the most roe.

Urchins can live up to 22 years, but typically live about 12 to 16 years. They can be harvested at four to six years.

Last year, Maine harvested about 18,493,884 pounds or $20,206,535 worth of urchins. The volume was higher in 1996 with 25,206,366 pounds, bringing in $28,263,513.

Creatures the world over eat urchin roe, the soft, colorful innards. Urchin is particularly prized in Japan, China, the Philippines, France and Chile. It is usually eaten raw.

Maine sells nearly all the urchins it harvests to Japan, although there is some market for the roe in New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

One out of every 1,000 urchins will be a hermaphrodite, meaning a single urchin has both sexes and can reproduce on its own.

Urchins have been used by biomedical scientists for more than a century to learn about embryology.

The greatest threat to the urchin is man’s harvesting.