Crinoid

ocean · echinoderms · ancient creatures · filter feeders

Living flowers underwater. Crinoids look so much like plants that people thought they were sea flowers for hundreds of years, but they're actually animals related to starfish and sea urchins that live on the ocean floor.

Two kinds of crinoids. Some crinoids stay attached to rocks by a long stalk their whole lives and are called sea lilies, while others called feather stars break free and can float around the ocean when they grow up.

Deep ocean explorers. Crinoids live everywhere in the ocean, from shallow tropical reefs to the deepest trenches more than 30,000 feet down where sunlight never reaches.

Feathery food catchers. These creatures have long, feathery arms made of hundreds of tiny pieces that work like a net to catch tiny food particles drifting by in the water.

Super ancient relatives. Crinoids have been around for over 500 million years and looked pretty similar back then, making them some of the oldest animals still living in the ocean today.