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Advancing Science for Global Health
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Home > Grantee Photo Contest > Photo of Fiji crinoids Print

Photo of Fiji crinoids

This image was selected as a winner of the 2010 Fogarty Grantee Photo Contest.

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 elaborate crinoid sea creature shown under water, about 10 short plain legs below and about 20 larger top fringed ones

Photo title: Fiji crinoids

Photographer: Mark Hay, Georgia Institute of Technology

Description: Crinoids are starfish relatives commonly called feather-stars or sea lilies (from the Greek "krinon" for lily).  Relatives of this Fijian crinoid were so abundant and diverse in ancient seas (from as much as 450 million years ago) that they grew on stalks up to 40 meters tall and fragments from their bodies built thick beds of limestone.  The ICBG program of the FIC focuses on not only discovery of useful pharmaceuticals from such marine organisms, but also on conserving the diverse ecosystems upon which such species depend.

Funding Fogarty program: International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups

Principal Investigator: Mark Hay, Georgia Institute of Technology