[crinoids] Flower-shaped crinoids have blanketed the seas periodically for more than 440 million years. They collect food with their arms. Each arm has a double row of tiny appendages, or "tube feet," lining a mucus tract running to the mouth.

Crinoids feed by extending their arms to catch particles and moving them, with their tube feet, up their sticky food grooves. Their menu is limited to organic particles and small organisms suspended in sea water.



Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History

Crinoids

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