Stalked crinoids, or sea lilies, like this one are abundant farther south, but until this individual was sampled on Dive 02 of the 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration expedition, no specimens had been collected for DNA. It may be an “undescribed species,” which means it does not have a formal species name and has not been compared in detail to closely related species. Informally, it is called Endoxocrinus “minimus.”
Stalked Crinoid
Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration. Download larger version (jpg, 1.9 MB).
Stalked crinoids, or sea lilies, like this one are abundant farther south, but until this individual was sampled on Dive 02 of the 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration expedition, no specimens had been collected for DNA. It may be an “undescribed species,” which means it does not have a formal species name and has not been compared in detail to closely related species. Informally, it is called Endoxocrinus “minimus.”
Learn more