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Misc. Crinoid Plates & Cups |
I make no claim that these are small, internet-friendly images. Sorry.
This first photo shows many examples of at least four different kinds of Crinoid
plates. I will eventually upload close-ups of a few of these as well.
From the bottom up there are...
basals, which are usually the closest visible plates to the
column (the infra-basals are actually closest to the column, but are usually not seen during life since they basically are the point at which
the column attaches to the base of the cup and are thus covered by it),
radials, which are the next plates upward from the basals,
primibrachs (referred to by soe as 'axilary brachial
plates), which are the arm (brachial) plates where the arms branch off into two arm segments)
and spinose primibrachs (explained
here); which are basically just primibrachs with spines.
This photo shows an unidentified, disarticulated crinoid.
This photo shows an unidentified, disarticulated crinoid.
This photo shows an unidentified, disarticulated crinoid.
With this find
though, I may have uncovered something I've been working on for a while.
You may have already figured that out if you followed the link I gave
above to explain the 'spinose
primibrach' plates.
This photo shows a partially articulated,
yet fairly weathered and as yet unidentified crinoid cup.
This next photo shows a fully articulated crinoid cup.
Yes, 'cup'. I did not say 'calyx'; big difference.
Someone once skewered me about calling it a 'cup', because it is not complete.
I say show me a 'complete' crinoid from the Minturn formation, and I'll
magically transform into one.
They don't exist in this stuff.
Complete = everything from the furthest reaches of the holdfast all the way up
through the last little tips of tegman spines and pinnules.
Don't worry, I won't be changing into a crinoid. :P
The cup is the portion of the crinoid from
the proximal columnals (the part of the column which attaches to the base of the
cup (where the infrabasal plates are) up through/including the infrabasal
plates, the basal plates and the radial plates.
Then, if the cup contains the primibrachs and/or (most usually) one or more
follow-on brachial segments, that's generally when it gets referred to as a
calyx.
This one is quite weathered, but it's so nice to find one which is out of the
matrix and still intact.
No firm identification
yet, but I suspect it may be Aglaocrinus magnus (Strimple,
1949);
based on info in
Wayne Itano's papers and other
resources (i.e. DMNH 13664).
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