Red Slate Pencil Urchin

Range: Indo-Pacific region, including the Hawaiian Islands

With their vibrant red and uniquely large, dull spines, the red slate pencil urchins are certainly easy to spot along rocky intertidal shores - their blatant flamboyance and minimal obvious defense almost laughing in the face of evolution. Like most urchins commonly found off the coast of Hawaiʻi, Native Hawaiians harvested slate pencil urchins for food. However, these urchins also had an additional cultural use. As its common name may suggest, archeological evidence shows that the uniquely sizeable spines of these urchins were indeed sharpened on one end and used as writing implements by Native Hawaiians (Titcomb 48).