If you walk along just about any beach, there’s a good chance you can find a creature called a sand dollar. Like their relative, the starfish, sand dollars are creatures that become very hard when they die. You can usually find them in gift shops or washed up on beaches. However, sometimes you can see live ones. Live sand dollars look as though they belong in the movie “Alien,” they have a firm yet spongy feeling texture, and their underside is covered with thousands of tiny hair-like tentacles. And like starfish, their mouth (which is called an “Aristotle’s lantern”) is on their underside, located in the center of all their creepy little tentacles.
You see, these creatures roam the ocean floor, using their tentacles to collect microscopic organisms such as plankton. The tentacles would pull and push the organisms toward the sand dollar’s mouth, almost like their food is crowd surfing its way to the creature’s maw, which consists of rows of sharp teeth arranged in five sections that grind up food. Sand dollars also like to gather in massive groups. For instance, 625 sand dollars can cover ten square feet of the ocean floor. In this 2012 video, a woman shows and tells us more about this remarkable little creature.
If you ever encounter a live sand dollar, please be kind and throw it back in the ocean? These creatures are a vital part of the ocean’s ecosystem.
You can watch this fascinating short video about sand dollars down below.