SEA STARS AND FRIENDS TOTE BAG

Text on back:
Sea Stars & Friends
Echinoderm Extravaganza
The echinoderms are an ancient group of animals that date back more than half a billion years in time. This diverse phylum, with over 7,000 species alive today, includes sea stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, sea cucumbers, and sea lilies (also know as crinoids).

The living echinoderms are all pentaradial, meaning they follow a pattern where the parts of the animal branch out into five distinct compartments, or arms. Back in the paleozoic though there were some bizarre, very funk looking asymmetrical forms. It was a real delight drawing these beautiful and sometimes very odd forms. I was drawn to the idea originally because I had envisioned sea star covered fabric, and ended up with so much more.

Weirdly echinoderms are the closest evolutionary group related to we vertebrates. That’s because we both are deuterstomes, which means that in the very earliest stages of life the anal region develops before the mouth region, which brings to mind many a bad joke. Their larvae are also very similar to protochordates.