North Africa, South Morocco, Northern Sahara Desert, Upper Silurian, ca. 420 million years ago. Truly a museum grade display fossil crinoid and coral fossil of impressively large proportions, this is an amazing giant natural association of a concentrated group of large, complete prehistoric sea lilies of the species Scyphocrinus elegans, with a rare fossil coral colony. The slab was formerly the bottom of the Silurian Sea where a number of these creatures died and became buried, still in their original articulated positions as they were when once alive. What makes this exceptionally large specimen stand out from the rest is the unusually large size it is, as well as the completeness and detail of a large intact portion of a prehistoric sea lily crinoid colony! Size: 30" L x 2" W x 38" H (76.2 cm x 5.1 cm x 96.5 cm)

Most Moroccan crinoid fossil slabs are assembled from many smaller, non-original fragments that are painted red and black over the original stone. Furthermore, the preservation is often substandard. This specimen is far superior in every way, to what is often seen on the market. The entire back of the slab is reinforced with epoxy and the overall thickness is only 1.5 to 2 inches on average, making this an ideal wall mount display fossil.

Despite this plant-like appearance and name "sea lily," crinoids are sea creatures that are related to starfish and sea urchins. These crinoids are of the form that attached themselves to the sea floor using a long stalk or anchor, which you can see preserved in several of the examples here. In life, these crinoids had a mouth on their top surface surrounded by feeding arms, giving them a waving, moving effect even here, frozen in stone. Many species of crinoids continue to live today, but during the Silurian period, they were much more abundant - the Silurian saw an explosion of life in the sea, and these animals would have been vibrant parts of that newly diverse ecosystem, probably brightly colored if modern sea lilies are anything to go by. Complete star fish are a rare occurrence in the fossil record, due to their skeletal composition that separates during decomposition. Dating back to nearly a half a billion years ago during the Ordovician Period, this amazing natural group fossil presents a mass extinction event! During this era, about 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth per year, compared with today, and 2 such collisions in the Devonian and Permian and caused the demise of many echinoderm species, but some crinoids and starfish survived and rapidly diversified in a short span of 60 million years!

Provenance: ex-private German Collection, formed in the 1980s

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#170532

Minor repair but no fabrication - crack filling only. Back reinforced with epoxy layer.