Spiny, Tough Skin

I realize that this is the Cnido-site and not the Echino-blog, which is a really neat blog by the way, but I often manage to take very bad pictures of Echinoderms (sea stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, etc.).  My solution is to crop the pics way down and look at the beautiful patterns on the echinoderms', well, dermis.  Echinoderm really means spiny skin (think echidna, a pretty spiny little bugger, and dermis).  I now have plenty of close up Echinoderm pics so I can present some of my favorites.  Since I always lose track of old pictures, most of these were taken recently at Sund Rock in Hood Canal.  All are of sea stars, except one sea cucumber.  Can you guess which is a sea cucumber?  If you into Echinoderm close-ups like I am, then check out my previous posts from Hawaii which had a number of pics of urchins and a crown-of-thorns sea star too.