What is a sand dollar?

What is a sand dollar?

The Sand Dollar is a type of unique burring sea urchin. The various species have a unique, flattened body shape and lack the typical elongated spines of other sea urchins. Researchers place these animals in the taxonomic order Clypeasteroida. Read on to learn about the Sand Dollar. Each of the various species has a slightly different appearance.

What is a sand dollar sea urchin?

The Sand Dollar is a type of unique burring sea urchin. The various species have a unique, flattened body shape and lack the typical elongated spines of other sea urchins. Researchers place these animals in the taxonomic order Clypeasteroida. Read on to learn about the Sand Dollar.

What is the eating apparatus of sand dollars?

What you hear are the remnants of the sand dollar’s amazing eating apparatus. The sand dollar has five jaws with 50 calcified skeletal elements and 60 muscles. They extrude them to eat, scraping algae from rocks and other surfaces and biting and chewing prey. They can then retract them into the body.

What happened to sand dollar software?

After thirty years in business, Sand Dollar Software has ceased operations. Over the course of our existence we have developed off-the-shelf document imaging software, provided network and hardware support, and built custom solutions for government and non-profit organizations.

The sand dollar – front above, and back below The sand dollar is flat-looking burrowing sea urchin belonging to the order Clypeasteroida. It lives on the floor of shallow sandy waters along the coasts of ocean waters in the Northern Hemisphere. The mollusks are washed up on Oregon Coast beaches regularly.

How many doves are in a sand dollar?

The sand dollar always has five doves inside. Finally, if you break open the sand dollar, five ”doves” emerge – the doves of the Peace and Joy of Christmas. There are always five doves every time you open one. Many poems have been written about the legend of the sand dollar.

What does the fifth hole in a sand dollar represent?

A center hole, the fifth, represents the pierce Wound to His Sacred Heart made by the spear of Longinus. If you turn the sand dollar over, you will find an outline of the Poinsetta, the Christmas flower. The sand dollar always has five doves inside

Is there a hyphen in sand dollar?

The various common terms (sand dollar, sea biscuit, etc.) sometimes appear printed in hyphenated forms (sand-dollar, sea-biscuit). Sand dollars live beyond the mean low water line on top of or just beneath the surface of sandy or muddy areas.

What happens when a sand dollar dies?

These fish will prey on sand dollars even through their tough exterior. Sand dollars have spines on their bodies that help them to move around the ocean floor. When a sand dollar dies, it loses the spines and becomes smooth as the exoskeleton is then exposed.

What are the pores on a sand dollar for?

The pores are perforations in the endoskeleton through which podia for gas exchange project from the body. The mouth of the sand dollar is located on the bottom of its body at the center of the petal-like pattern. Unlike other urchins, the bodies of sand dollars also display secondary front-to-back bilateral symmetry.