Sand+Dollar

The Sand dollar, biologically known as **//Echinarachinius parma//**, are very common all over the world and are easily spotted and adored by people of all ages. Sand dollars are round, with a skeleton also known as a "test", they have tiny movable spines, they are flat, very fragile, and have 5 petal like pores on their upper body. They are most closely related to sea urchins, sand dollars, and echinoderms. They can be found in intertidal zones or deep in the ocean but many of us recognize them on the sandy beaches because they prefer to live in sandy/ muddy/ or soft habitats in general. These creatures burrow themselves into the sand to protect them from fish and stay out of harms way. Most people think Sand dollars are white but in reality they're purple when they are alive and they give off the white look after they've died and been exposed to the sun (shown in the picture below are sand dollars both living; purple, and dead; white). They like to stick together to lower the chance of being harmed by a predator like fish and they're usually found in groups which makes reproduction very easy. They reproduce by releasing gamates into the water and the free swimming larvae go through many different metamorphosing stages before forming their skeleton/ test, and once they've formed into the Sand dollar they become bottom dwellers along with everyone else in their family. Sand dollars have cilia all over their tiny spines, cilia looks hair like and are used as their sensory organelles so they can find food, and their tubefeet help them to move the food and place it into their mouth opening located in the center of their underside. They typically eat crustacean larvae, small copepods, detritus, diatoms, algea, and other organisms located on the sandy bottom. The most interesting thing about the Sand dollar is that the larvae can clone itself when exposed to mucus from other predatory fish and can use this as a self defense mechanism against their predators. Shown in the pictures below are sand dollars both living (purple) and dead (white).





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