Ted Kinsman is a scientific photographer that specializes in creating images for books, magazines, and television. His particular areas of interest are in x-ray radiography, high-speed photography, Scanning electron microscopy, and time-lapse cinematography. His work has appeared in numerous books and magazines ranging from Discover Magazine to Forbes. Recently his work has appeared on Gray's Anatomy and CSI New York. In addition to running 
B.N. (Bobbie) Sullivan has a strong affinity for the sea and everything in it. She first learned to dive in 1970 and has since logged thousands of dives. A wish to document the marine life she encountered prompted her to learn underwater photography more than 20 years ago. More recently, she began to write about the marine life she has photographed. A research psychologist by profession, she approaches her subject matter with the mindset of a scientist, but targets her writing to a general readership in whom she hopes to foster an appreciation for the ocean and its inhabitants.
B Jefferson Bolender is Training Coordinator of the State of Arizona's
program for disability awareness and assistive technology. Through
her travels she always has a camera at hand to photograph everything
from people to technology and nature. As a teacher of elementary
education, special education and art, her interests include a wide
array of subject matter with an emphasis on documentation with an
artist's eye.
Steve Jurvetson enjoys rocketry and photography and especially the pursuit of both in the Black Rock Desert. Some action photos and video links can be found 
Alex Wild is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he works on the molecular phylogenetics of various groups of insects. He is also a part-time photographer whose images appear in such venues as Ranger Rick, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, and even ScienceBlogs.
Crinoids, a class of marine animals in the phylum Echinodermata, are pretty creatures. The photo at right shows a crinoid perched on a Malaysian reef with its fluffy arms extended for feeding. Looking at the photo, it's easy to see how they acquired their common name, Feather Stars.
This is how divers usually see crinoids, and this is how they are most often photographed. As pretty as crinoids are -- and they come in a vast array of colors -- photographs of the whole animal don't reveal much about the animal's structure or behavior. Whole-animal photos of creatures like this should be just a starting point. A photo study of an animal, or class of animals, should include close-up and macro photos as well.
Today I present three close-up photos of crinoids that show something of their structure. Tomorrow I will continue with some macro photos that reveal even more about crinoids.
In the photo above, you can see the arrangement of the animal's feathery, many-jointed arms around a central disc. The animal's mouth is in the disc, which is covered by many cirri. Crinoids are filter feeders. They capture tiny bits of organic matter suspended in the water that passes over the pinnules on their arms. The food is then transported inward, down the length of the arms to the mouth.
This second close-up photo is an aboral view of the same individual. (It can be difficult to photograph this view, but this very accommodating individual happened to choose a protruding strand of wire coral as its perch, so I was able to swim around behind it to take the photo!) Here we have a good view of the form and function of the cirri on the underside of this crinoid. These cirri are used for mobility: the crinoid can skitter along using the cirri like little feet. Then once the animal finds a suitable perch, it uses its cirri to hold itself in place. In this case, the cirri are wrapped around the wire coral in a tight grasp.
As filter feeders, crinoids optimally position themselves in places where currents -- tidal and otherwise -- pass over them. The cirri of crinoids have tiny hooks at the ends, which help them to hold on and stay in place during feeding. While this may be functional for the crinoids, should they decide to perch on a soft surface, those hooks on the cirri can do damage. In this final photo (a different individual and probably a different species than the previous two photos), a crinoid has decided to perch on a sponge and has dug into the sponge's flesh with its cirri. As you can see, the sponge has been damaged (although it will likely heal over in time).
About the photos: The crinoid in the image at the top of the page was photographed at Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia. The three close-up images were taken at Manado Tua, off the northeastern tip of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia.
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: Martin | August 12, 2009 11:37 AM
Hello Martin - There are some crinoids that are sessile; you may be thinking of those. They have a stem that is attached to the substrate, and they don't move about. The crinoids in these photos do move about, using their cirri for mobility. There are still other kinds of crinoids that move about not on cirri, but by using some of their arms to 'swim' (short distances, of course) and to push themselves/crawl along surfaces.
I don't know of a video showing crinoids moving about, but perhaps someone else does?
Posted by: B. N. Sullivan | August 12, 2009 12:10 PM
Pulau (with a u; it means island) Sipadan. But never mind - your photos are awesome.
Posted by: Sojournposse | August 12, 2009 2:19 PM
Hello Sojournposse - Thanks for the kind words, and also for catching that typo. I just fixed it. I hate it when proper names are misspelled and I'm mortified that I didn't catch that myself!
Posted by: B. N. Sullivan | August 12, 2009 2:36 PM
These are absolutely fantastic! Way to pay attention to morphological detail. It makes a taxonomist like me squeal with delight!
For Martin, we've posted a brief video of a deep sea crinoid moving along the seafloor at Deep Sea News. It is very eerie. And yes it is absolutely real!
http://deepseanews.com/2008/10/the-27-best-deep-sea-species-25-stalked-crinoids/
Posted by: Kevin Z | August 12, 2009 9:02 PM
Hi Kevin - Glad you like the photos, but no squealing please. :-D
Thanks very much for posting the link, which I encourage readers to click on. Not only is there a brief video clip of a stalked crinoid crawling (!), but some good still photos of stalked crinoids, too.
For Martin -
Earlier today I searched on YouTube to see if I could find any videos showing motile crinoids. I was amazed at how many crinoid videos there were. Here's a link to the YouTube search result: http://tinyurl.com/crinoid You can see videos of swimming, crawling, and 'flying' crinoids.
Posted by: B. N. Sullivan | August 12, 2009 11:14 PM
B.N. and Kevin Z., thanks very much for those links. That's quite possibly the coolest thing I've seen in a long while. Reminds me why I hang out here.
Posted by: Martin | August 13, 2009 11:56 AM
It's interesting that those tattoos do a better job of realistically representing the cephalopod eye (the one that's visible in each, anyway!) than most cartoons do. There are probably cartoony versions of cephalopods on tattoos too though.
Posted by: hiphop | August 15, 2009 12:06 PM
clear clean water! A day in rice and that phone is as good as new.(Now if that's a solution of NaOH or HCL, well then, that's a different story.
You want bad, have that cell phone drop into a privvy on the Appalachian Trail
Posted by: sikiş | March 26, 2010 3:56 PM
It's interesting that those tattoos do a better job of realistically representing the cephalopod eye (the one that's visible in each, anyway!) than most cartoons do. There are probably cartoony versions of cephalopods on tattoos too though.
thanks...nice good post..
Posted by: oyun hileleri | May 9, 2010 2:19 AM