Fossilised Deltoblastus Permicus dating back to the Permian Age, 250 - 300 million years ago, from West Timor, Indonesia. You will receive the exact Deltoblastus fossil pictured. At first glance, these fossils often get mistaken for shells or strange pebbles, but Deltoblastus was actually a blastoid, an extinct group of echinoderms, distant relatives of starfish, sea urchins, and crinoids. While blastoids and crinoids look quite similar, they had some key differences. Crinoids (the “sea lilies”) typically had long, distinct, feathery arms for feeding. Blastoids, on the other hand, had a more compact, bud-shaped body, with their food-gathering structures tucked in close and filtering food up grooves towards the mouth at the top. What we usually find fossilised is the hard, plated “bud” (called a theca), made up of tightly fitted calcite plates arranged in a wonderfully geometric pattern. Nature really does provide some fascinatingly architectural designs!
