urchin

Not to mention, you could step on a stingray or a sea urchin.

The spike proteins are the little points that emerge out of the coronavirus, like spines jutting from a sea urchin, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses them to infect a patient's cells.

"That transition is attributed to a marine heat wave, urchin overgrazing, historical extirpation of the sea otter and recent mass mortality of the sunflower star. Digging even deeper, the sunflower star demise was itself driven by two stressors: a sea star wasting disease epidemic and a marine heat wave."

"A classic example of multiple stressors causing a regime shift is the transition from kelp forests to urchin barrens in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of North America," Meunier said.

Ninety-five percent of Northern California’s kelp forest has been displaced by sea urchin “barrens” since the West Coast’s marine heat wave in 2014, ’15 and ’16, when water temperature averaged 7 degrees above normal.