Wonders of Nature: The Feather Star
This beautiful creature is a Crinoid called a feather star. Since the class Crinoidea belongs to the phylum Echinodermata, feather stars and their close relatives sea lilies are also related to sea stars (starfish), sea cucumbers, and sea urchins.
The crinoids are the oldest class of echinoderms. Fossils of extinct species show that they were in existence as long as five hundred seventy million years ago. Like other echinoderms, crinoids display pentaradial symmetry. They may have five arms or many more, but those arms often grow in multiples of five. Also like other echinoderms, if a crinoid loses an arm, it can grow it back.
Feather stars, which live in coral reefs and often have symbiotic relationships with small creatures such as shrimp, can swim through the ocean waters or crawl in their habitat with their many arms, that are called temen.
Read about crinoids and see gorgeous photos at One World One Ocean: Blue Zoo: Crinoids [Click]
Read specifically about feather stars and see more gorgeous potos at A-Z Animals: Feather Star [Click] and Feather Star: Meet the Fascinating Marine Creature [Click]
Here’s a relevant 2022 article: Scientists found a new sea creature with 20 'arms' and named it after a strawberry [Click]
The more I look at that feather star, the more prehistoric it appears to me. Very pretty.
ReplyDelete----Alan
Storm Lee heads towards New England and Canada [Click]
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Working harder than ever: the last remaining Japanese American farmers [Click]
ReplyDelete—Alan
Thanks for today's post, Cat!
ReplyDeleteReanimated spiders and smart toilets triumph at Ig Nobel prizes [Click]
ReplyDelete—-Alan
Houston neighborhood being tormented by long-time cat burglar [Click]
ReplyDelete——Alan
Federal Judge Issues Scathing Takedown of Trump Motion to reopen case against HRC et al. that was already dismissed with prejudice [Click] And we found a deceased opossum in our pool just now.
ReplyDelete——Alan
Via politicalwire.com:
ReplyDelete1) Donald Trump bungled criticisms of “cognitively impaired” Joe Biden saying he will lead the world into a second world war.
2) Trump also suggested that he is leading Barack Obama in polls of the 2024 race, despite Obama not being in the contest.
---Alan
Which makes me wonder if he is trying to raise sub rosa a mental incompetence defense. Someone should point out to him that success in that defense would result in him being locked up in a mental institution until he is cured. And that his fellow inmates might include homicidal maniacs.
Maybe a mental institution is the best and safest place for him.
DeleteThough the idiots who say they will vote for him if he is in prison probably would not balk at voting for him in a mental hospital.
Judge Chutkin issues limited gag order [Click]
ReplyDelete—Alan
Let's see if I have this straight. Trump wanted the names of the people he threatened to be published. He also wanted the threats he made against them to be published.
DeleteIs it just me, or is that stark, raving mad?
It certainly doesn't compute for me, and I don't think it would for any competent attorney. He could have just slipped out of town on Trump Force One and flitted off to a bolt hole in some foreign country. But it must be that he has a pathological need to be surrounded by sycophants. Sycophant: A base parasite; a mean or servile flatterer; especially a flatterer of princes and great men. [1913 Webster]
DeleteA sycophant will everything admire:
Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire.
--Dryden.
---Alan
The Lincoln Proect: Senile [Click] I’m guessing that the Fox News commentators’ quotes were meant to refer to Mr. Biden, but not following them I can’t really know.
ReplyDelete—Alan
Man of Constant Sorrow (Donald Trump Song Parody) [Click]
ReplyDeleteThe Big Rock Candy Mountains (Donald Trump Song Parody) [Click]
In The Jailhouse Now (Donald Trump Song Parody) [Click]
—Alan
Trump says cognitively impaired Biden will lead us into 'WORLD WAR TWO' - during gaffe-laden speech in which he appeared to say he was leading OBAMA in the polls
ReplyDeleteJust typical Republican jargon based in ignorance. Always allege your opponent has the malady you have.
DeleteWouldn't it be awful if he were ajudged non compis mentis and thus incapable of standing trial? Do you think that's what he's angling for? The problem with that strategy, as Alan pointed out earlier, is that he winds up in a home for the criminally insane along with homicidal maniacs and the like. Doesn't sound too salubrious to me.
DeleteNowadays maybe they have memory care lockups? But if his attorneys don't raise an insanity defense, then it can't be raised by the prosecution (as I understand it). Maybe if I have some popcorn the solution will come to me (or not).
Delete----Alan
BTW, I remember a psychiatrist who was studying homicidal maniacs (I am sure there must be a more generous name for them these days, but I am living in the past). He wanted to discover if there was something common in their early lives---and there was; most were childhood victims of sexual abuse. He insisted on interviewing the subjects directly, with no wall in between, with no restraints, and with no security guard immediately at hand. They warned him that if the subjects decided to kill him--which they might at any time and for any reason or no reason-- they couldn't save him unless they were right there. He went ahead anyway.
Delete----Alan
I had a case in Seattle years and years ago where there was no doubt the accused was guilty of multiple (2 or 3?) murders and mayhem (one case?). I will spare you the truly shocking details. There was no doubt that the guy would have to be locked up for the rest of his life, but since the prosecutor agreed not to press for the death penalty (it wasn't clear if the accused was in command of his senses at the time of the incident), the question was whether he would be in prison (if guilty) or mental hospital (if not guilty). He was medicated, and you couldn't imagine a better behaved defendant.
Delete----Alan
Let me rephrase that--he had killed 2 or 3 people and nearly beat to death one or two others. I was impolitic to say that he was guilty of murders and mayhem--but that was what the jury decided.
Delete----Alan
Daghestani wedding dance [Click] Wow! Obviously professional dancers, but still!
ReplyDelete—Alan
Deletewow, indeedy!
puddle~~