A creature which taxonomically belongs to Family Calcalinidae, Order Foraminiferida, Class Rhizopoda, Phylum Protozoa.  Its scientific name is Baclogypsina sphaerulata.  It is distributed from Tanegashima Island towards the subtropical and tropical areas.  Individual size is around 1mm, its skeleton is with 5~6 processes, making it a real star shape.  Locally, the star sands occur abundantly, sometimes they are more than true sand grains in some beaches.  In Iriomote Island, it can be found at every beach when we look for it carefully, in particular it is abundant at Hoshizuna Beach.  Also, they inhabit around Hatoma Island so abundantly. 
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