Lifeboat Foundation

The animals were thought to have gone extinct before the dinosaurs arrived on the scene.

Brian Kennedy, one of the lead scientists of NOAA’s deep sea expedition, said the stalked crinoid “are these big beautiful flower looking animals, but they grow on this long stalk. They’re called sea lilies, and that’s really what they look like a lot of times.”

“These were thought extinct, we thought they were a relic of pre-dinosaur times, and now we find they are one of the most common organisms in the deep sea.”