Whooa. I find those little cylinders/discs all the time at a local river. Knew they were called crinoids. But never knew what a crinoid actually was. Assumed it was some sort of plant or something. Insanely cool.
They actually still exist today!!! They're just more commonly called sea lilies - relatives of sea stars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins, they're very fascinating creatures. Most fossil crinoids were thought to be immobile, but we now have video proof that they can pull themselves out of the substrate and either swim or drag themselves to a new spot.
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u/SharksForArms 2d ago
Whooa. I find those little cylinders/discs all the time at a local river. Knew they were called crinoids. But never knew what a crinoid actually was. Assumed it was some sort of plant or something. Insanely cool.