Last week on Fossil Friday, I gave you a fossil that looked more like embroidery. But in fact, it was a sea creature from the Jurassic—Saccocoma pectinata, aka, a floating crinoid.
The commenters very quickly picked this one out right away. One person even correctly identified the fossil coming from the Solnhofen Limestone of Germany.
From the UC Museum of Paleontology: "Towards the end of the Jurassic, about 155 milion years ago, a warm shallow sea studded with islands covered much of what is now Germany...Within these warm, isolated lagoons, the salinity rose, and the water may have been anoxic (depleted of oxygen) or even toxic at various intervals...However, any organism that fell into the lagoons from the land, or that drifted or was washed into the lagoons from the ocean, was buried in soft carbonate muds."
As a result, many delicate creatures, like this one, were preserved there.
The video above shows a modern-day crinoid making its way across the ocean floor. Kudos to those who correctly identified the critter. I think we have some ocean lovers in our audience!
