Christmas 'chinoderms

Well, it looks like those crazy Antarctic echinoderms can't get enough of the holiday season. Their latest death-defying stunt was to use their superpowers to form a seastar Christmas tree, topped with a brilliant sea urchin (for once the seastars weren't stars at all). This latest wonderment of nature was witnessed and photographed by the diving safety officer for McMurdo, Rob Robbins. It is impressive that with the harshness of the local environment these Antarctic echinoderms appear to be very tolerant of huge differences not only in evolutionary lineages (afterall sea stars and sea urchins split from each other hundreds of millions of years ago) but also in religous perspectives (see echinoderm Menorah below). A worthy holiday lesson for us all to keep in mind.