On our first afternoon we found some interesting “things” on the beach but we had no idea what they were. The next day in the Cannon Beach visitor center the very helpful lady told us exactly what they were. Now I can’t remember exactly what she said but I think it went something like this:
The term sand dollar (or sea cookie or snapper biscuit in New Zealand, 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 urchins, sea cucumbers and starfish.
I may not have got that exactly right but it was definitely something along those lines.
On our way home we stopped at a little place by the sea called Seaside. One of the things that Seaside is known for is a large population of sand dollars and so after doing some shopping (to keep Grampy happy) we went on the beach to search for some perfect sand dollars.
As luck would have it, we found quite a few:
Which was lucky because there were a lot of people out on the beach looking for them:
So now we have our collection of (what turned out to be quite smelly) sand dollars the only thing to decide is what on earth to do with them!