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]
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