How to Identify Live Sand Dollars
One of the first rules of collecting on the beach is to make sure when you take something home, you’re not taking anything that’s still alive. You should always make sure there’s not something still making a home in any shells you collect, make sure barnacles aren’t still living when you head home, and make sure you don’t take any live sand dollars.
Sand dollar is the common name for sea urchins in the order Clypeasteroida, who are relatively flat and burrow in the sand. It’s actually really easy to tell if a sand dollar is alive or if what you’ve found is just its “test,” or bony skeleton.
When sand dollars are alive, they are covered with a coating of cilia, small hairlike feet that help the sand dollar move and bury itself in the sand. These tiny spines move when the animal is still alive, so if you hold a sand dollar in your hand and feel the spines moving, it is living. The spines also give the sand dollar a dark color ranging from brown to grey to purple and red. Finally, some sand dollars will leave a yellowish stain on your hands if you hold a live specimen. This harmless substance called echinochrome is another sign that you should return the critter to the water.
Sand dollars can’t survive out of the water, so if you find a live one, put it gently back in the water. If you find a sand dollar on the beach, it is probably no longer alive and it is ok to take. Even sand dollars that look grey or tan in color are dead if they have no tiny coating of furry spines on them. And, if you find one that is rock-hard and unbreakable, you’re lucky enough to have found a sand dollar fossil, which is a sand dollar that is definitely dead!
This article appeared in the Beachcombing Magazine May/June 2019 issue.
Sand dollar fossils are not the only fossils from ancient seas found on beaches
Learn more about the history of seashell collecting:
More about seashells:
- Bubble Shells
- The Chambered Nautilus
- Egg-citing Finds: Whelk Egg Casings
- Hidden Beauty: Quahog Shells
- Identifying Florida Seashells
- Is That Scallop Shell Broken?
- The Red Abalone
- Saving the Shoreline with Star Sand
- Shark Eyes: The Cannibalistic Mollusk
- Top 10 Sanibel Sea Shells
Learn more about beach fossils
- Fossils on the Great Lakes Shores
- Beachcombing on the Ancient Sea Floor
- Hidden Beauty: Petoskey Stones
- Beachcombing in the Pacific Northwest: Fossil Concretions
- Shark Teeth: Amazing Beach Fossils
- A jaw-some collection
- Shark Frenzy
- Grand Slam Day in the Driftless
- Fossilized Urchins
- How to Identify Live Sand Dollars
- Welcome to the Jurassic Coast
- Mary Anning: A Lightning Strike, a Tongue Twister, and a Dinosaur
- Lyme Regis Fossil Festival
- Fossil Finds on the Oregon Coast
No live shelling: Be sure shells are empty and sand dollars, sea stars, and sea urchins are no longer alive before you bring them home.
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Thank you! Ive lived in FL for over 20 years and still somehow knew next to nothing before reading this blog post. Since I’d never felt the need to bring one home one way or the other, Ive always believed unless its bleached white, better to be safe and just leave it since it may still be alive. Its good to now know that color is no is not always the best indicator for determining rather they are still alive or not.