Life Among the Sand Grains

Have you ever played with sand at the beach? Did you know you were also playing with thousands of tiny animals? The sand in the ocean is home to many small creatures called meiofauna, but you can only see them under a magnifying glass or microscope. Meiofauna are so tiny that sand grains seem like boulders to them. Meiofauna are too small to move these boulders, so they wriggle through spaces between them. Living in such tight spaces has led them to evolve long, skinny body shapes like worms. They also have special body parts to grip sand grains and avoid being washed away. Meiofauna are small, but they still play a big role in the ocean, feeding larger animals and recycling waste on the ocean floor. There are tens of thousands of species of meiofauna worldwide, and many more are waiting to be discovered.