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.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSjs0TssIOma_AAMSEviYOBp7MHYm12oPx9UcuzQrtlqR1ylI18a01h9_dop0K3XIOa9fBU9eZfooa3FRiAFpFYPO1TTmPQmjPx8reH0UAwFrWddV1PSjCyszIyq55BvzcxXT-ySzCFEw/s400/modern-Crinoid.jpg)
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.