Eccentric sand dollar

They are colored gray, brown, black or shades of purple. Their size is variable, averaging 76 mm with the worlds largest found measuring 120 mm wide. They have a dome shaped carapace varying in height to about 10 mm with a circular body or test. Their body is covered with fine, spiny tube-like feet with cilia, and like other echinoderms they have five-fold radial symmetry. The mouth, anus, and food grooves are on the lower (oral) surface and the aboral surface has a petalidium, or petal shaped structure, with tube feet. Dead individuals have a gray/white test, or skeleton, which is often found washed up on beaches. It has a water-vascular system from the internal cavity or coelom that connect with tube feet. The tube feet are arranged in five paired rows and are found on the ambulacra—the five radial areas on the undersurface of the animal, and are used for locomotion, feeding, and respiration. Spines are generally club shaped in adults, and less so in juveniles. The five ambulacral rows alternate with five interambulacral areas, where calcareous plates extend into the test. At the center on the aboral side is the madreporite—a perforated platelike structure, and on the interambulacra are the four tiny genital pores. Radiating out from the genital pores are the five flower petals, which represents the ambulacral radii. The mouth is in the center on the bottom side, with the anus toward the edge.