Neogene crinoids of southeast Asia: preservation, systematics and significance

The Cenozoic record of fossil crinoids is poor. In part, this is because the stalked taxa have moved into deep water (>100-150m water depth) since the Cretaceous, but also results from the propensity for the crinoid endoskeleton to disarticulate soon after death. Despite this, we report two new, small crinoid faunas of moderate diversity from the Pliocene of East Kalimantan and the Philippines. Included taxa are columnals of the isocrinid Metacrinus? sp.; a bourgueticrinid cup and columnal, Democrinus? sp.; and cirral and brachial ossicles (isocrinids and comatulids). The preservation of these Pliocene crinoids is not conducive to classification to the level of species, although some taxa are easier to determine than others, but the precise reason for this dearth of complete specimens remains uncertain. Because of our knowledge of extant crinoids, this Cenozoic gap' has been poorly appreciated. Rather than denigrating the Pliocene crinoids documented herein for being fragmentary and difficult to accurately determine, we instead report them as a rare set of data points, filling, in part, the Cenozoic gap'..