#4858 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Sea Potato
🇳🇱 Zeeklit ·Echinocardium cordatum
🪼 Jellyfish, starfish, worms & co 📍 in the Netherlands
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Echinocardium cordatum , or the sea potato , is a sea urchin in the family Loveniidae. It is found in sub-tidal regions in temperate seas around the world and lives buried in the sandy sea floor.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 162 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: the #12 most seen of the jellyfish, starfish, worms & co in NL.
- 3,386 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Thomas Pennant in 1777 (249 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Sea Potato
- Nederlands
- Zeeklit
- scientific name
- Echinocardium cordatum
- class
- Echinoidea
- order
- Spatangoida
- family
- Loveniidae
- sightings in NL
- 162
- sightings in Europe
- 2,126
- sightings worldwide
- 3,386
- GBIF records in NL
- 47,570
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1777 by Thomas Pennant
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 122232, Wikidata Q838252, GBIF 2278938, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.