This is an Echinoid, it is a member of the Echinoderm (ih-ky-nuh-durm) family. This family includes certain spiny-skinned sea animals. There are about 5,000 different kinds, Starfish, Brittle Stars, Sand Dollars and Sea Urchins are the most common kinds. This family is made up entirely of sea animals. Their body parts are arranged around the center like the spokes of a wheel around the hub. The bodies are usually divided into five sections around the center, with the mouth in the center of the underneath side. They reproduce by laying eggs which hatch into larvae and swim freely. As they get older they sink to the bottom of the ocean and grow into adults.

SPENCER'S ROCK

Spencer Barnard was a long time employee of the New Bloomfield Special Road District. While grading a road along middle river near Larry Maddox's farm he spotted a ball and stopped to investigated further. It turned out to be a rock with an embedded fossil. His daughter Marylyn was attending Missouri University at the time and she took the rock and had a geology professor examine it. She was told that it was a starfish skeleton from a time when this area was covered by a sea.

Donated by Martha Barnard his daughter.

The late Spencer Barnard, of New Bloomfield, Mo., found this Echinoid when he was building a new road in the Middle River Area of Callaway County. When he first saw it, he thought it was a "baseball", but where he got down off of his bulldozer, he was surprized to find the "baseball", was really a fossil from the days of the Dinosaurs. Spencer Barnard is Collin Barnard's Grandpa. Collin attends New Bloomfield R-III Schools in New Bloomfield, Mo.

Article submitted by Dan Barnard, New Bloomfield, Missouri