The impact on levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere by the decaying remains of a group of marine creatures that includes starfish and sea urchin has been significantly underestimated. The ...

Decomposition is essential to all ecosystems, both on land and in the ocean. In marine environments, decomposition and ...

The star shape of the starfish (five arms) is intriguing to many marine aficionados. But how it came to be is a question not many can answer. It is due to a gap in the fossil record of echinoderms, ...

The diversity of larval forms in marine invertebrates has long fuelled discussion on evolutionary origins of novel features and pathways of evolutionary change. Most phyla of animals are marine, and ...

Echinoderms are a common, widespread and successful phylum of marine animals with an extensive and well-preserved fossil record. Echinoderms are a common, widespread and successful phylum of marine ...

Scientists have discovered a new species that lived more than 500 million years ago -- a form of ancient echinoderm that was ancestral to modern-day groups such as sea cucumbers, sea urchins, sea ...

Sea stars and their relatives eat, breathe and scuttle around the seafloor with tiny tube feet. Now researchers have gotten their first-ever look at similar tentacle-like structures in an extinct ...

John and Vicki Pearse with former students at the 2017 NAEC meeting where they were honored. From left to right: Damhnait McHugh, James McClintock, Vicki Pearse, John Pearse, Benjamin Miner, Isidro ...

Researchers in Japan have finally observed living larvae of a sea lily, a marine invertebrate with a 500-million-year fossil record. The finding supports a century-old hypothesis about how the ...

The diversity and abundance of echinoderm fossils is reflected in the Museum's large, world-class collection. Fossil echinoderms are numerous, due in part to the fantastic preservation potential of ...