Sea Urchin Dissection

One of the benefits of being a veterinary student living on a Caribbean island is this: if you find something on the beach to dissect, you just bring it to lab the next day and play with it there. That's exactly what I did.

I had actually planned to just take it apart on my kitchen table, but decided that perhaps my med school roommate wouldn't appreciate that. It's really quite pretty and neat looking. If it didn't stink of dead things, I'd totally keep it. I really wanted to cut it open though, and couldn't think of a good way to make it not stink (the bleach idea didn't seem like it would get rid of the whole smell).

I ended up having one of my friends cut it open. I was nervous about either not being patient enough or it being too fragile. Patience could have been an issue, but it took a lot of careful scalpel work to crack that sucker open! I also know my friend was very excited to get to cut it open haha. The inside was pretty cool looking (definitely worth the bringing it home and cutting it open!). The real question is now what do I do with it??