http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz1xpkWyyBA

I’m a big fish (and pretty much all water-creatures) nerd, whenever I’m stressed or just need a reminder about how beautiful the world is outside of whatever paperwork I’m clawing through or stress I’m under I look at sea creatures. Knowing magical haunting things are out in the water right now is comforting to me, makes my problems seem a little less daunting. One I came across this week online was a crinoid or feather starfish!

A type of marine invertebrate, these peculiar starfish look almost nothing like their cousins! Instead of fleshy appendages feather starfish have fringed flowing limbs. They look more like delicate aquatic plants than mobile animals.

They use these flowing arms to swim through the water and to transport food to their mouths located on top of their bodies at the base of their arms. The fringe has a mucus coating which prey and food particles stick to. They primarily eat microorganisms and plankton.

Check out the video above of a large one swimming along! So haunting and strange. These kinds of animals really inspire me, they’re so unlike the things we encounter every day, and exist in a world we barely understand.

More information on them here –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crinoid

-Taeden