Crinoids are marine invertebrates that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that remain attached to the sea floor by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms, called feather stars or comatulids, are members of the largest crinoid order, Comatulida. Crinoids are echinoderms in the phylum Echinodermata, which also includes the starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. They live in both shallow water and in depths as great as 9,000 meters (30,000 ft).
The Jerusalem artichoke, also called sunroot, sunchoke, wild sunflower, topinambur, or earth apple, is a species of sunflower native to central North America. It is cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its tuber, which is used as a root vegetable.
A holdfast is a root-like structure that anchors aquatic sessile organisms, such as seaweed, other sessile algae, stalked crinoids, benthic cnidarians, and sponges, to the substrate.
Helianthus is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of Helianthus are native to North America and Central America. The best-known species is the common sunflower. This and other species, notably Jerusalem artichoke, are cultivated in temperate regions and some tropical regions, as food crops for humans, cattle, and poultry, and as ornamental plants. The species H. annuus typically grows during the summer and into early fall, with the peak growth season being mid-summer.
Blastoids are an extinct type of stemmed echinoderm, often referred to as sea buds. They first appear, along with many other echinoderm classes, in the Ordovician period, and reached their greatest diversity in the Mississippian subperiod of the Carboniferous period. However, blastoids may have originated in the Cambrian. Blastoids persisted until their extinction at the end of Permian, about 250 million years ago. Although never as diverse as their contemporary relatives, the crinoids, blastoids are common fossils, especially in many Mississippian-age rocks.
Calopogon, grass pink, is a genus of terrestrial orchids. The generic name is from Greek and means "beautiful beard", referring to the cluster of hairs adorning the labellum. The five species are native to the eastern United States, eastern Canada, Cuba and the Bahamas. The genus Calopogon is abbreviated Cpg in trade journals.
The Eocrinoidea are an extinct class of echinoderms that lived between the Early Cambrian and Late Silurian periods. They are the earliest known group of stalked, arm-bearing echinoderms, and were the most common echinoderms during the Cambrian.
Uintacrinus is an extinct genus of crinoids from the Cretaceous of Kansas. It was unusual among crinoids because it had no stalk, and probably floated above the seafloor. It lived in the Western Interior Seaway. This crinoid was a colonial animal with ten long arms each that it used to capture prey.
The Mississippian Borden Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee. It has many members, which has led some geologists to consider it a group rather than a formation.
Bumastus is an extinct genus of corynexochid trilobites which existed from the Early Ordovician period to the Late Silurian period. They were relatively large trilobites, reaching a length of 6 in (15 cm). They were distinctive for their highly globular, smooth-surfaced exoskeleton. They possessed well-developed, large compound eyes and were believed to have dwelled in shallow-water sediments in life.
Agaricocrinus americanus, also known as the mushroom crinoid or American crinoid, is a species of extinct crinoid. Its fossils can be found in the U.S. states of Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. They date back to the Lower Mississippian, about 345 million years ago.
Agaricocrinus is a genus of extinct crinoids, belonging to the family Coelocrinidae.
Platycrinites are an extinct genus of Paleozoic stalked crinoids belonging to the family Platycrinitidae.
Taxocrinus is an extinct genus of crinoids.
Abrotocrinus is an extinct genus of crinoids.
Scytalocrinus is an extinct genus of crinoids.
Ulrichicrinus is an extinct genus of crinoids.
Delocrinus is a genus of extinct crinoids, belonging to the family Catacrinidae. Specimens have been found in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, Iowa, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Aporometra wilsoni is a marine invertebrate, a species of crinoid or feather star in the family Aporometridae. It is found in shallow water around the coasts of southern Australia.
