CREEPING CRINOIDS !

If you think you'd : "rather be a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas..." you may have company.

Most who remember Crinoids,  AKA 'Sea Lillies' , from Biology 101, recall them as stalky fossils no more animated than corals or stromatolites. Like horseshoe crabs, they're still around , but until recent years have been dismissed as static throwbacks photographed standing idly on the seabed , like Neocrinus decorus here , or trawled up stone-dead from the depths where they've been waiting out evolution for ages.

No longer.The spry 400 million year old species have been caught on videotape  scooting about the abyss on their petal-tips like the Addams Family's handy pet heirloom  , Hand.  Henceforth, gals receiving flowers with cards from J.Alfred Prufrock had better think twice before opening the box. And watch where you walk your  lobster , too.

Comments

[John R. Strohm]

The name was "Thing", not "Hand".

As in "Thank you, Thing", Morticia said, when Thing handed her the mail.

[Jana Davis]

I have got Crinoids all over the place at our ranch! All you have to do is bend over and pick them up. When it rains they really come out! Some of them are as big as my thumb some as long as my fore finger. Enjoy your hunting. I just go in my back yard!
RESPONSE

Congratulations . They do make a toothsome alternative to fossil armadillo chili.