crinoids

From the Greek word krinon ("lily"), crinoids are beautiful and brilliant marine animals. Known for their many feather-like arms, they resemble flowering plants on the bottom of great bodies of waters, but possess nervous and circulatory systems. As a class, they date to the Ordovician period over 450 million years ago, although only one of five of the subclasses still exists. Parts used in these designs are fossilized columnals from the arms, which resemble small donuts. What I love about crinoids is their individuality - every columnal piece you find is different, from the inner marking (sometimes perfect circles or five pointed starts), to the color (bone white to dark beige), to the size (no bigger than a large grain of sand to the size of a nickel). It reminds me constantly of how many species we share the earth with, and how much more we can see of them if we just take time to look.