Long before dinosaurs walked the Earth, and long before animals or plants fully spread across dry land, strange marine creatures were already thriving in the planet’s earliest reefs. Among them were crinoids — ancient relatives of starfish that looked like delicate sea flowers anchored to the ocean floor.

Crinoid fossils turn up by the millions, but this is just the second time that scientists have found one with soft tissues still intact.

Long before dinosaurs walked the Earth, and long before animals or plants fully spread across dry land, strange marine creatures were already thriving in the planet’s earliest…