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pite the robustness of the individual skeletal modules complete skeletons of starfish, brittle stars and crinoids are rare in the fossil record. This is because they quickly disarticulate (disconnect from each other) once the encompassing skin rots away, and in the absence of tissue there is nothing to hold the plates together. The modular construction is a result of the growth system employed by echinoderms, which adds new segments at the centre of the radial limbs, pushing the existing plates outwards and lengthening the arms. Sea urchins on the other hand are often well preserved in chalk beds or limestone. During fossilization, the cavities in the stereom are filled in with calcite that is in crystalline continuity with the surrounding material. On fracturing such rock, distinctive cleavage patterns can be seen and sometimes even the intricate internal and external structure of the test. The epidermis consists of cells responsible for the support and maintenance of the skeleton, as well as pigment cells, mechanoreceptor cells (which detect motion on the animal's surface), and sometimes gland cells which secrete sticky fluids or even toxins. The varied and often vivid colours of echinoderms are produced by the action of skin pigment cells. These are produced by a variable combination of coloured pigments, such as the dark melanin, red carotinoids, and carotene proteins, which can be blue, green, or violet. These may be light-sensitive, and as a result many echinoderms change appearance completely as night falls. The reaction can happen quickly – the sea urchin Centrostephanus longispinus changes from jet black to grey-brown in just fifty minutes when exposed to light. One characteristic of most echinoderms is a special kind of tissue known as catch connective tissue. This collagenous material can change its mechanical properties in a few seconds or minutes through nervous control rather than by muscular means. This tissue enables a starfish to change from moving flexibly around the seabed to becoming rigid while prying open a bivalve mollusc or preventing itself from being extracted from a crevice. Similarly, sea urchins can lock their normally mob