Moroccan Crinoid Plate

This Silurian Scyphocrinites elegans captures the movement of the ancient seas in its elegantly placed, inflated arms that appear lifelike in this poetic, metaphoric dance of death.

Unlike most crinoids being rooted to the ground, Scyphocrinites had a lobolith, which is a floating sphere, that kept the animal afloat in water - Scyphocrinites hung upside down at the surface which may account for its widespread distribution throughout North America, Asia, Europe and Africa.

Inticate calyx with many stellate plates and fine pinnules in several specimens capture the beauty of this once living creature in stone.