Modern Day Crinoid

Yesterday, I got to tour the Indiana University Southeast Geosciences Department. Toward the end of our tour, we went into one of the labs and one the shelf was a jar with a clear preservative. In the jar was this white crinoid which were told was found in about 400 feet of water off the coast of Florida. It was interesting to see a creature that usually is only found as fossil.

Some of the images are not too clear since I had low lighting and was taking pictures through a jar filled with liquid.

(UPDATED: 09/12/2010)
Here are pictures of a modern day sea lily/crinoid (Metacrinus rotundus) of the phylum Echinodermata.  Pictures taken in August 2010 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

I include some pictures for Mississippian Period (Lower Carboniferous) crinoid stems from the Fort Payne Formation located at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky.