A camera sensor like a CCD doesn't actually have pixels, it has photosites, and it's also an analog device so the electrical information from those photosites has to be converted into digital info anyway. It is not necessary for there to be a 1:1 ratio between the number of physical photosites and the number of digitally recorded pixels -- and generally it looks better to have more photosites due to oversampling.

Hooray! This counts as the Post of the Day and it's not even noon yet.

Thanks David,