A feather star wedged into a crevice with the arms out into the current, usually yellow or orange. Search the arms for the clingfish and shrimps that live in them.
Twenty to thirty-five arms, each ten to twenty centimetres long. The arms are orange with yellow curled tips, feather-like with alternating side branches and black grooves along them. A white form with black tips also occurs.
The other common Caribbean crinoid has black arms with a pale band.
Ten to thirty metres on reef. By day it hides in a crevice, under coral or inside a sponge with a few arms out to filter feed; at night it climbs on top of a coral head or sea fan and extends fully, catching plankton on mucus-covered tube feet.
It withdraws completely in strong current or swell, so a rough day means fewer of them showing.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.