Crinoids
A large 420 million year old Crinoid from Morocco. are commonly known as sea lilies, though they are animals, not plants. Crinoids are echinoderms related to starfish, sea urchins, and brittle stars. Many crinoid traits are like other members of their phylum. Such traits include tube feet, radial symmetry, a water vascular system, and appendages in multiples of five (pentameral).
Most of the Paleozoic crinoid species attached themselves to substrates on the ocean floor. Crinoids are famous for their feathery, tentacle-like appendages that opened up like a flower and captured particles of food such as plankton. Though crinoids appeared in the Ordovician (488 mya), they survived the Permian mass extinction and diversified into hundreds of species which survive, today.
A large 420 million year old Crinoid from Morocco. are commonly known as sea lilies, though they are animals, not plants. Crinoids are echinoderms related to starfish, sea urchins, and brittle stars. Many crinoid traits are like other members of their phylum. Such traits include tube feet, radial symmetry, a water vascular system, and appendages in multiples of five (pentameral).
Most of the Paleozoic crinoid species attached themselves to substrates on the ocean floor. Crinoids are famous for their feathery, tentacle-like appendages that opened up like a flower and captured particles of food such as plankton. Though crinoids appeared in the Ordovician (488 mya), they survived the Permian mass extinction and diversified into hundreds of species which survive, today.
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