Spectacular 14 Inch Moroccan Crinoid

Here is a very well preserved and large specimen of the Upper Silurian (420 million years old) crinoid Scyphocrinites elegans from Morocco. The plate is approximately 16x14 inches with the crown of the crinoid being about 10 inches in length. It is a nice solid plate which would made an excellent display or could even be hung on a wall.

Crinoids where animals which were rooted to the floor of the ocean by a stem and had many armored feeding arms which they used to filter the water for food. They first appeared in the Ordovician period and are still alive today.

The Scyphocrinites crinoids are quarried around Erfoud, Morocco by digging straight down 16 feet until the layer is reached. Once the crinoid horizon is located a tunnel is dug along it by hand. The rock, dirt and crinoid slabs must then be hauled to the surface in baskets where they are reassembled and prepared. So it is a very labor intensive process to bring a beautiful crinoid plate like this one to market.