Enormous crinoids of the Jurassic era, related to sea stars and sea urchins, could have carried whole ecosystems around the world

Today’s oceans are jammed with plastic, which not only pollutes the water and poisons its inhabitants but also carries some animals to distant destinations. As researchers rush to discern the imminent repercussions of these virtually indestructible plastic rafts on global ecosystems, others are turning to the past to explore whether this buoyant lifestyle is actually new. The subject of their study? A giant of the Jurassic era: the crinoid.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-sea-life-may-have-hitched-rides-across-oceans-giant-living-rafts-180972876/

Today’s oceans are jammed with plastic, which not only pollutes the water and poisons its inhabitants but also carries some animals to distant destinations. As researchers rush to discern the imminent repercussions of these virtually indestructible plastic rafts on global ecosystems

I wonder if they would survive on plastic rafts, it would take quite a while to reach land and not much would be edible on the raft unless they kind of used it as a platform and got on and off it to eat

Cymek said:

Today’s oceans are jammed with plastic, which not only pollutes the water and poisons its inhabitants but also carries some animals to distant destinations. As researchers rush to discern the imminent repercussions of these virtually indestructible plastic rafts on global ecosystems

I wonder if they would survive on plastic rafts, it would take quite a while to reach land and not much would be edible on the raft unless they kind of used it as a platform and got on and off it to eat

Plastic is also a solid, so plants animals will adhere to it to create habitat for other animals.

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

Today’s oceans are jammed with plastic, which not only pollutes the water and poisons its inhabitants but also carries some animals to distant destinations. As researchers rush to discern the imminent repercussions of these virtually indestructible plastic rafts on global ecosystems

I wonder if they would survive on plastic rafts, it would take quite a while to reach land and not much would be edible on the raft unless they kind of used it as a platform and got on and off it to eat

Plastic is also a solid, so plants animals will adhere to it to create habitat for other animals.

I wonder if it’s a reasonably healthy mini ecosystem or would it be sick from the bottom up as the plants absorb chemicals leeching from the plastic. It would be OK I suppose if you had huge living rafts with a plastic framework and flora and fauna lived on them and prospered. Its still pollution but at least friendlier

PermeateFree said:

Enormous crinoids of the Jurassic era, related to sea stars and sea urchins, could have carried whole ecosystems around the world

Today’s oceans are jammed with plastic, which not only pollutes the water and poisons its inhabitants but also carries some animals to distant destinations. As researchers rush to discern the imminent repercussions of these virtually indestructible plastic rafts on global ecosystems, others are turning to the past to explore whether this buoyant lifestyle is actually new. The subject of their study? A giant of the Jurassic era: the crinoid.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-sea-life-may-have-hitched-rides-across-oceans-giant-living-rafts-180972876/

> Although this rafting lifestyle was once the subject of intense debate among crinoid researchers, most now agree that at least two crinoid lineages spent tens of millions of years rafting.

That’s a surprise to me. Modern crinoids, as the article says, don’t raft at all.

> 180 million years ago.