Crinoid Feeding Strategies: New Insights From Subsea Video And Time-Lapse

Time-lapse film from 1983 and recent digital videography of deep-sea crinoids reveals behaviors in taxa never before seen in life.

David Meyer (Author), Margaret Veitch (Author), Charles G. Messing (Author), Angela Stevenson (Author)

9781108810074, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 June 2021

75 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 0.2 cm, 0.051 kg

Modern videography provides an ever-widening window into subsea echinoderm life with vast potential for new knowledge. Supported by video evidence throughout, this Element begins with time-lapse video made in 1983 on film, using an off-the-shelf camera, flash, and underwater housings. Although quality has now been significantly improved by digital imagery, films from over thirty years ago captured crinoid feeding behavior previously unknown and demonstrated a great potential to learn about many other aspects of their biology. This sequence is followed by several examples of recent digital videography from submersibles of deep-sea crinoids and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) (stalked and unstalked), as well as close-up video of crinoids in aquaria. These recent studies enabled a new classification of crinoid arm postures, provided detailed views of food particle capture, and revealed a wide range of behaviors in taxa never before seen in life.

1. Feather Stars at Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef (14O 38' S, 145O 30'E)
2. Arm Postures in Living Crinoids
3. Mechanism for Particle Interception and Transport in Comatulid Crinoid Florometra Serratissima: Presenting a Range of Particle Sizes from Mesocosm Observations
4. Feeding Postures in a Pentacrinoid Florometra and Responses of Democrinus (Bourgeticrinidae) and Cenocrinus (Isocrinidae) to Increased Current.

Subject Areas: Palaeontology [RBX], Evolution [PSAJ], Life sciences: general issues [PSA], Biology, life sciences [PS]