Charles G. Messing

Modern videography provides an ever-widening window into subsea echinoderm life with vast potential for new knowledge. Supported by video evidence throughout, this Element begins with time-lapse video made in 1983 on film, using an off-the-shelf camera, flash, and underwater housings. Although quality has now been significantly improved by digital imagery, films from over thirty years ago captured crinoid feeding behavior previously unknown and demonstrated a great potential to learn about many other aspects of their biology. This sequence is followed by several examples of recent digital videography from submersibles of deep-sea crinoids and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) (stalked and unstalked), as well as close-up video of crinoids in aquaria. These recent studies enabled a new classification of crinoid arm postures, provided detailed views of food particle capture, and revealed a wide range of behaviors in taxa never before seen in life.