Sea lilies are amazing sea flowers, so often pleasing us with bright colors on coral reefs. Who are they?
In fact, they are an invertebrate echinoderminal marine animal (Crinoidea). Agree that even the name itself is not simple. And if you add the fact that these creatures have lived on the earth for hundreds of millions of years! That is, they are older than dinosaurs.
We can only see one group of sea lilies. It's called stoolless. The second group occurs mainly at depths of 200 m.
Sea lily (crinoids), as immediately becomes clear by appearance-filterers. Their hands in the open state form a real knotty network for plankton. Therefore, they traditionally find places on the crown of a coral reef or along its walls, so that a greater flow of water passes through them. And for the same reason they are very fond of fan corals.
Often we had to observe them on the ground of strong currents. Sometimes - forced, as cuddle up to the reef was the only way to somehow hold, and make sure that you did not get blown into the blue)
However, unlike corals, sea lilies have the ability to move. Unhooked from the ground, they begin to alternately move their hands, due to which they can smoothly move or plan. I must say this is a very interesting process, and when you see it, especially the first time, you always stop to look. Unfortunately, it's difficult to display it in the proper way, but the videographers are very fond of it)
However, lilies are primarily attracted by bright colors, beautiful bends and shrimps and crabs that live on them from time to time.
They deftly hide among the branches of the lily and at the same time get a good opportunity for food. Many of them, for example shrimp crinoids, have a color corresponding to the color of the lily on which they live. Although this is not always the case.
Especially colorful and diverse lilies are found in the Papua, Indonesia and the Philippines. You can see a lot of different sea lilies in one dive. Including very interesting, like bud-something gilded and shiny. This most resembled the droplets of dew that hang on each branch.
If still closer, you can see that each twig consists of a set of thin legs. And those in their turn are covered with small cilia. These cilia are quite stiff and work like hooks. Straight like Velcro on clothes. And if we touch the branches of the sea lily, it will be very difficult to unhook it.
All photos were taken during one safari at West Papua.
------------------------
My equipment: Canon 5Dmk2 + Canon 15mm fish eye + Nexus underwater housing+ 2 Inon 240strobes.
More details about my underwater setup: https://steemit.com/@narchuk/me-and-my-equipment
------------------------
[//]:# (!steemitworldmap -0.571091 lat 130.680671 long What a peacock? d3scr)
Read next