SUPER ANIMAL: Sand Dollar

Monday, 25 June 2012

Sand Dollar

The term sand dollar (or sea cookie or snapper biscuit in New zeland, or pansy shell in South Africa) refers to species of extremely flattened, burrowing echinoids belonging to the order Clypeasteroida. Some species within the order, not quite as flat, are known as sea biscuits. Related animals include the sea cucumber and starfish.The bodies of adult sand dollars, like those of other echoniids, display radical semmestry. The petal-like pattern in sand dollars consists of five paired rows of pores. The pores are perforations in the endoselection through which podia for gas exchange project from the body.