Beach sand shaped like stars

On some Okinawan beaches, tiny star-shaped grains of sand are the empty shells of foraminifera, single-celled marine organisms. Their unusual shape is not just a pattern in the sand: each grain is a shell that once held a living cell. So these little stars are remnants of organisms that lived in the sea. The grains may look like tiny stars, but each one is an empty shell.

1/2