Sanctuary Asia – July 2019

82 Sanctuary Asia, April 2019

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Sanctuary|Natural History

82 Sanctuary Asia, June 2019

Th e magnifi cent marine fl ora and fauna that you read

about in our cover story (see page 22), and which are under

imminent threat from Mumbai’s Coastal Road Project, have

a rich past and have been around for a long time. What

you see here are fossils of a group of marine animals called

crinoids. Th ey have been thriving since nearly 300 million

years before the dinosaurs showed up. Th ese Uintacrinus

socialis, one of the early ancestors of present-day crinoids

such as feather stars and sea lilies, are commonly found

in shallow waters and pools in the intertidal zones. Th ese

specimens were found on a plate of chalk from the Upper

Cretaceous Niobara formation of western America.