Don’t Kill Sand Dollars!
When a sand dollar dies, its skeleton (called a test) will often wash onto shore. At times these tests appear without the velvety coating and have been naturally bleached. This is what you want to collect. Sand dollars do not have legs or fins leading many young minds to ask how they can move. They are able to move around because of the many spines covering their bodies. Next time you gather one; take a close look at the body. If there appears to be fine hairs (called cilia) covering the body, and these hairs seem to move, then you have a live sand dollar. Please do not collect this one, but rather let it thrive.If it is low tide or the tide is going out, you can help this beautiful creature by placing it on the ocean’s sandy bottom. When doing this please be careful to place it bottom side down.
Tags: collect, sand dollars, sea creature, test
July 4th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Thank you so much for posting this. On visits to Jekyll, my busband and I would always see people at out hotels who had collected live sand dollars. How did we know they were alive….they would leave them outside their hotel door to “dry” out.
July 4th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Thank you so much for posting this. On visits to Jekyll, my busband and I would always see people at out hotels who had collected live sand dollars. How did we know they were alive….they would leave them outside their hotel door to “dry” out.
June 14th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Please post notices at the beach and at more of the shops regarding this issue. My husband and I were at Jekyll for the first time ever this week and had we not stopped at the visitor center we would not know about this request. Signs at the beach would be marvelous. I did mention to a couple of people that the conservation groups were asking people to not take the live ones and told them how to tell the difference. If visitors don’t stop at the welcome center or go into Zach’s Eatery then they probably won’t see the notice. Those are the only two places we saw it.