This is a way of understanding how one organism can evolve into another, sometimes by making relatively small changes. Mooi's professional trajectory is one that has wavered only fractionally from a laser-like focus on echinoderms. I even drew up blueprints for my own research vessel. And yielded some surprises. It looked for all the world like this urchin was plowing through a field of sea lilies, eating sea lily stems like candy cigarettes.
Surprises are likely to keep coming.
Echinoderms provide a wonderful model to study evolution's patterns, and the interesting questions won't all be snapped up any time soon. Sharif Taha is a freelance writer living in San Francisco.