Search results for "Tremadocian"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Athenacrinus n. gen. and other early echinoderm taxa inform crinoid origin and arm evolution
2020
AbstractIntermediate morphologies of a new fossil crinoid shed light on the pathway by which crinoids acquired their distinctive arms. Apomorphies originating deep in echinoderm history among early nonblastozoan pentaradiate echinoderms distinguish Tremadocian (earliest Ordovician) crinoid arms from later taxa. The brachial series is separated from the ambulacra, part of the axial skeleton, by lateral plate fields. Cover plates are arrayed in two tiers, and floor plates expressed podial basins and pores. Later during the Early Ordovician, floor plates contacted and nestled into brachials, then were unexpressed as stereom elements entirely and cover plates were reduced to a single tier. Inco…
Exceptionally preserved soft parts in fossils from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco clarify stylophoran affinities within basal deuterostomes.
2019
10 pages; International audience; The extinct echinoderm clade Stylophora consists of some of the strangest known deuterostomes. Stylophorans are known from complete, fully articulated skeletal remains from the middle Cambrian to the Pennsylvanian, but remain difficult to interpret. Their bizarre morphology, with a single appendage extending from a main body, has spawned vigorous debate over the phylogenetic significance of stylophorans, which were long considered modified but bona fide echinoderms with a feeding appendage. More recent interpretation of this appendage as a posterior “tail-like” structure has literally turned the animal back to front, leading to consideration of stylophorans…
Morphometric analysis of Tremadocian (earliest Ordovician) kirkocystid mitrates (Echinodermata, Stylophora) from the Taebaeksan Basin, Korea
2004
Abstract Abundant isolated remains of stylophoran echinoderms (cornutes and mitrates) are reported for the first time in the late Tremadocian (Asaphellus Zone) Tumugol Formation of Korea. Mitrate remains include numerous adorals of Kirkocystidae. Several new important anatomical features have been observed on these adorals, as an internal calcitic layer that is associated to s2 and possibly also to the palmar complex. This observation suggests that the palmar complex would be present not only in mitrocystitid mitrates, but also in peltocystitids. For the first time, several morphometric analyses have been undertaken based on isolated kirkocystid adorals, so as to explore the morphological d…
Tremadocian Stylophoran Echinoderms From The Taebaeksan Basin, Korea.
2006
15 pages; International audience; Abundant isolated elements of cornute and mitrate stylophorans were recovered from the upper Tremadocian Tumugol Formation in the Taebaeksan Basin, Korea. Cornute skeletal elements comprise a diverse assemblage of marginals and brachials of cothurnocystid affinities, suggesting the presence of no fewer than four different species. Mitrate remains include numerous isolated adorals, marginals, and aulacophoral plates with typical peltocystidan morphologies. Two adorals are identified as Anatifopsis sp., while all the others are attributable to A. cocaban. However, the two previously documented peltocystidans of Korea, A. cocaban and A. truncata, are sufficien…
Early Palaeozoic palaeobiogeography and palaeoecology of stylophoran echinoderms
2007
44 pages; International audience; Stylophorans (cornutes, mitrates) represent one of the most diverse classes of Cambro-Ordovician echinoderms. They were freeliving, benthic, non-radiate forms, closely related to asterozoans and crinoids. Taphonomic, sedimentological, and palaeosynecological data provide useful information on key aspects of stylophoran palaeoecology. Such a combined approach suggests that the rarity of stylophorans in proximal environments (above storm-wave base) was probably original and does not exclusively result from the possession of a loosely articulated polyplated calcitic test. Conversely, stylophorans were relatively abundant in deeper settings (below storm-wave ba…