Česká geologická služba
Virtual museum
Home  > Taxonomy > Animals > Metazoans > Echinoderms > Cystoids

Cystoidea (Cystoids)

      The Cystoidea or cystoids, are extinct echinoderms that lived attached to the sea floor by stalks, and are distinguished from other echinoderms by triangular pore openings. Superficially, the cystoids resembled crinoids, but they had an ovoid, rather than cup-shaped, body. The mouth was at the upper pole of the body, with the opposite end attached to the substratum, often by a stalk, although some stalkless species did exist. The anus lay on the side of the body. Five, or less commonly three, ambulacral areas ran along the outside of the body, radiating outwards from the mouth. A number of small tentacles either surrounded the mouth, or projected outwards in a row from the ambulacral areas, depending on species. The most distinctive feature of cystoids was the presence of a number of pores in the rigid skeleton encasing the body. These were most likely respiratory in nature, allowing fluid to flow in or out of the body. In some species, the pores were clustered in distinct regions, but in others they were distributed quite widely over the body surface.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystoids
cystoidea
Img. 82:
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP583
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 CW1978
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 CW1990
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP557
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP563
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP569
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP581
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP582
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP586
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 JP1382
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP500
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP499
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP506
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP510
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP511
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP502
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP498
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP504
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP507
Codiacystis bohemica Barrande, 1887 KP509

Virtual museum of the Czech Geological Survey, www.geology.cz, (C) Czech Geological Survey, 2011, v.0.99 [13.12.2011]