JAMAICAN CRETACEOUS CRINOIDEA

Jamaica has the best-known fauna of fossil crinoids of the Antillean i slands. Two Cretaceous species have been reexamined on the basis of ne w material. Lower Cretaceous Apiocrinites sp., previously referred to Austinocrinus n. sp. and first documented from a short pluricolumnal, is now known from brachials and further fragments of column. This is t he first millericrinid, and only the second non-isocrinid stalked crin oid, to be identified from the Jamaican and Antillean fossil record. O ther ossicles may be derived from the cirri of a comatulid. Applinocri nus cretacea (Bather) is well known from the upper Senonian of England , North America and the West Indies, although Caribbean specimens have not been figured previously. Functional interpretations of the mode o f life of Applinocrinus suggest that it was a benthic crinoid, presuma bly with arms. It lived embedded in the sediment.