Foraminifera are single-celled creatures which produce a diverse range of beautiful and tiny protective shells. These shells appear in the fossil record as far back as 550 million-years, and in some locations, entire beaches are made up of these so-called "foram sands."

The islands of Okinawa, Japan are home to several foram sand beaches. A folktale from Taketomi-Jima describes the star-shaped shells as the children of the Polar Star and the Southern Cross, devoured and spat out again by a giant serpent which served the Seven Dragon God of the Sea.

The Japanese Star Sand Vial Pendant is made from Foraminifera from a private collection obtained many years ago from Hoshizuna-no-Hama ("Star Sand Beach") on the island of Iriomote in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.

Foram sand beaches contain many billions of foraminifera remains along with other debris one is likely to find on many beaches. To prepare this specimen, we had to begin by separating forams from actual sand and tiny bits of debris, as the sand and the shells are the same size, this was done by hand with tweezers. It is possible that some common beach debris may be included in this specimen but we've done our best separate the forams from the sand and other bits one is likely to find on a beach.

Human beings have studied foraminifera since at least the 5th century BCE when Herodotus noted their presence in the limestone of Egyptian pyramids. The French naturalist Alcide d'Orbigny (1802-1857), considered the father of modern micropaleontology, personally classified thousands of species in both France and the Americas.

Between the years 1826 and 1833, d'Orbigny toured South America for the Paris Museum of Natural History. During his trip, d'Orbigny gathered over 10,000 different specimens across a very broad spectrum.

When Charles Darwin followed several years later, he found traces of d'Orbigny at every turn. Darwin worried that d'Orbigny might have gathered all of the best specimens, and while the specimens these men returned with might have overlapped in places, each made discoveries that went far beyond the collection of objects.

In Darwin's case, we all know that his great discovery was the Origin of Species or the Theory of Evolution. For d'Orbigny, the journey seemed to solidify his thoughts about the immense power and beauty in the smallest of creatures:

Today, scientists often use foraminifera as reference points in the study of climate change over long periods of time. Foraminifera often live symbiotically with microalgae, and together they play an important role in coral reef ecosystems via production of carbonate sands and by buffering daily pH changes. Combined with pollen samples from deep-sea cores and isotopic analysis, the variety of foraminifera species, their physical size and even sexual dimorphism, are valuable in establishing and confirming the existence of climatic zones in ancient seas.