Sorry, can’t help it, they are so cool….
The photo below shows a crinoid perched atop a rock.
The flowery head is the part that waves around in the current filtering food out of the water. The part at the bottom that looks like an upside down Minerva’s head is how Mr Crinoid attaches to the substrate. He can hold on really tight with all those legs. Anyway, at the bottom of those legs you can see a small little crab holding on to the crinoid. Don’t ask me what kind of crab it is – because I have no idea. But it’s amazing what an ecosystem exists on and in a crinoid!
Check this one out. Not so many legs. It’s high tailing it across a big coral.
Like many of my earlier postings, these photos are taken during a night dive on the outer reef of Mana Island, Fiji.
These are beautiful pictures of modern crinoids, and yes, they are very cool animals! I’m a geology undergraduate student at BYU-Idaho and I’m applying to graduate school to study fossil crinoids.
I’d be interested in seeing any other pictures you have of crinoids!
By: Scott on 12-December-2009
at 12:27 pm