Engage My Brain

You probably know that a sand dollar is not money that you can spend at the snack bar at the beach, right? A sand dollar is actually a living sea creature. Sand dollars live on the ocean bottom, mainly in shallow water.

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A sand dollar's shell looks like a round, white coin, which is how it got its name. But when it is alive in the water, it is covered with short, moveable dark spines that look like fur. The creature uses them to move around on the ocean floor and to push small pieces of food into its mouth.

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Most sand dollars have a pattern of five sets of pores, or tiny openings, on them. These allow seawater into the sand dollar's body. The water is then pumped to where it's needed in the creature's body.