Hardouinia mortonis (Weathered)

Hardouinia mortonis
Peedee Formation
Maastrichtian Age, Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma)
Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA
Self collected approximately between 2001 and 2005

A forgotten specimen of mine I recently found in a box of old seashells, this is a heavily weathered but mostly complete specimen I found as a young boy. While I've been a fan of fossils for quite some time, I both did not completely know the true nature of these sea urchins around the time, nor did I typically treasure things that had imperfections when I was that young. 

Now, I can safely say that this is a very special specimen; this may be one of the first fossils, if not the first fossil, I have collected myself. 

As a sidenote, my younger brother managed to find a nearly perfect specimen sometime between 2007-2010, which was a source of my envy for over a decade until the beach replinishement project!