Eccentric Sand Dollar

Also known as Western Sand Dollar, Pacific Sand Dollar, Sea-Cake, Biscuit-Urchin

Eccentric sand dollars are specialized flat sea urchins that live in dense colonies on sandy seafloors along the Pacific coast. Unlike other sand dollars, they frequently align themselves vertically, burying their front edge in the sand and letting the rest of their body stand upright in the water column to catch drifting plankton. Their dark purple, brown, or grey bodies are covered in a velvet-like coat of tiny spines and cilia that move food toward their central mouth.