Crinoids

They are everywhere -- Brachiopods that look like clam shells, Bryozoans that look like wishbones, Crinoids that look like cheerios piled on top of one another, sponges that look like rock globs, horn coral that look like fingers and Burrows that look kind of like a small dinosaur bone.

Eileen Ogintz: National Parks Are the Perfect Spots to Help Kids Learn to Be Active and Healthy Eileen Ogintz 2011

They are everywhere -- Brachiopods that look like clam shells, Bryozoans that look like wishbones, Crinoids that look like cheerios piled on top of one another, sponges that look like rock globs, horn coral that look like fingers and Burrows that look kind of like a small dinosaur bone.

Eileen Ogintz: National Parks Are the Perfect Spots to Help Kids Learn to Be Active and Healthy Eileen Ogintz 2011

Crinoids, ancient sea creatures, look in fossilized form like flowers, with tentacles radiating from a single stem.

Really Old Masters: Dinosaur Bones 2008

In them the ab-oral region, which has such a remarkable predominance in the Crinoid, has become depressed; it no longer extends into a stem, nor does it even rise into the calyx-like or cup-like projection so characteristic of the Crinoids, -- though, when the animal is living, the ab-oral side of the disk is still quite convex.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 Various

In no group of the Animal Kingdom is the fertility of invention more striking than in the Crinoids.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 Various

Among Radiates, some of the higher kinds of Echinoderms, the Ophiurans and Echinolds, take the place of the Crinoids, and the Acalephian Corals give way to the Astræan and Meandrina-like types, resembling the Reef-Builders of the present time.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 70, August, 1863 Various

Among Radiates, the Corals were more nearly allied to those of the earlier ages than to those of modern times, and Crinoids abounded still, though some of the higher Echinoderm types were already introduced.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 70, August, 1863 Various

The Troehites were recognized as simply the broken portions of the stem of some of these old fossil Crinoids, and the Crinoids themselves were seen to be the ancient representatives of the present Comatulae and Star-Fishes with stems.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 Various

One of these sketches shows us such a creature hungrily inspecting a pool where Crinoids, with their long stems, large, closely-coiled Chambered Shells, and Brachiopods, the Oysters and

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 67, May, 1863 Various

The Crinoids were still the most prominent representatives of the class of Echinoderms, though some resembling the

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 67, May, 1863 Various