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The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science began depositing sea urchins on a reef off Key Biscayne to see if they can help coral.
Florida researchers hoping to save coral reefs have begun depositing groups of sea urchins at a Key Biscayne restoration site to see if they can help cure ailing reefs.
In the annals of biology, long-spined sea urchins rank high among the least loved.
With spines that allow them to grow to the size of a volleyball, all loaded with painful toxins, Florida and Caribbean sea urchins have been the bane of divers.
“They’re pesky little devils,” said Lad Akins, the curator of marine conservation at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science who’s been diving in Florida for four decades. “Or they used to be.”