Crinoids

Crinoids are marine invertebrates that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that remain attached to the sea floor by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms, called feather stars or comatulids, are members of the largest crinoid order, Comatulida. Crinoids are echinoderms in the phylum Echinodermata, which also includes the starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. They live in both shallow water and at depths over .

Cladida is a major subgroup of crinoids with a complicated taxonomic history. Cladida was originally applied to a wide assortment of extinct crinoids with a dicyclic calyx. Under this original definition, cladids would represent a paraphyletic order ancestral to several other major crinoid groups, particularly the living Articulata. More recently, Cladida has been redefined as a monophyletic parvclass of pentacrinoids which encompasses articulates and the extinct Flexibilia (flexibles). Cladids also include various minor taxa such as the hybocrinids and "cyathocrines". As flexibles were not or