People Create 3D Hats For Sea Urchins After Finding Out They Use Shells As Hats

When Twitter user, @ok_girlfriend, who also happens to be a biologist, revealed that she just discovered that, "sea urchins naturally use shells as hats to make them feel safer and camouflaged so some aquarist had the genius idea to make them tiny hats." The aquarists 3D printed hats for these little sea creatures and it's indeed genius! We can't get enough of these little sea urchins donning tiny hats!

Lately, we've been bunnies in hats, snakes in hats, and even hedgehogs in hats -- seems like we have another animal to add to the tiny hat-wearing collection!

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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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via @ok_girlfriend
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Reef2reef community member riosouza writes, "I just want to share my little a little discovery with you guys. After seen my sea urchins carrying snail shells, rocks on their back I decide to read more about it. Studies reviewed the possible reasons --

via riosouza / reef2reef

would be to protect themselves against predators and/or a full-spectrum light source, mainly against UV rays," Riosouza continues, "Then I decided to do a quick design for a 3d printed hat, and to my surprise they absolutely love it. Since I replace the rocks and shells from their back with the hats, they never let it go, and I was astonished to see they moving the hats towards the light source. Which leads me to the conclusion they certainly use it against excessive UV rays."
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via riosouza / reef2reef