Sea Urchin

The Sea Urchin is a forageable item found year-round in the Tide Pool section of the Beach, east of the wooden footbridge. It is one of the beach’s special forage items and does not count toward the normal six-item forage limit on the map. Sea Urchins also appear more often during Summer 12–14, when extra ones can spawn anywhere on the beach, including the western side.

Outside the beach, Sea Urchins can also be found on levels 1–29 of the Mines while the Shrine of Challenge is enabled or the Danger in the Deep quest is active. Each Sea Urchin picked up grants 7 Foraging XP, and all Foraging bonuses apply to it. Emily may occasionally mail one as a gift, and she also sells five at the Desert Festival for Calico Eggs. Sea Urchins can additionally be gifted by a pet turtle with max friendship.

Sea Urchins can be placed in a Fish Pond even though they are not normally considered fish. A pond of Sea Urchins reproduces every 4 days, starts with a capacity of 10, and does not require any quests to increase that capacity. The only possible output is purple Sea Urchin Roe. Their fish pond produce table includes a low chance of producing Roe with small populations, a higher chance as the population increases, and a small chance of producing extra Roe at higher populations, with the remainder being nothing. Some saltwater fish Fish Pond quests may request one or two Sea Urchins, and the Raccoon may request two Sea Urchins as part of his fifth request and any request from the sixth onward.

Sea Urchin also has a few utility uses beyond selling or collecting:

• It can be used in the Sewing Machine to create the dyeable Strapped Top.
• It can be used as a purple dye in the dye pots in Emily’s and Haley’s house at 2 Willow Lane.
• Hats can be placed on sea urchins in a fish tank.

Because it is a forage item rather than a fish, Sea Urchin is easy to stockpile from the beach once the Tide Pool is accessible, and the summer beach bonus makes it especially convenient to collect in bulk. Its Fish Pond use is mainly valuable for generating Sea Urchin Roe, while its tailoring and dye uses make it a flexible material for players who want both cosmetics and pond production.