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Phylum: Foraminifera
Common Name: Forams or “hole bearers” (Latin)
Habitat: Most marine plankton, some freshwater, some benthic.
Periods of Existence: Precambrian to Recent (benthic in Paleozoic, many planktonic since
Mesozoic)
Description: Heterotrophic one-celled marine protists with tests of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) through which they project many
pseudopodia (rhizopodia) used for locomotion, anchoring and to capture food. These rhizopodia often form a net (like a spider’s web)
to catch food.
Fusulinids (Triticites)
Nummulites
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Phylum: Porifera
Common Name or members: sponges – ‘pore bearer’ (Latin)
Habitat: Sponges are almost entirely marine, but a few are freshwater.
Periods of Existence: Late Proterzoic [Precambrian] to Recent
Description: Sponges have an internal skeleton usually composed of needlelike, mineralized
calcite or silica spicules and/or spongin, a fibrous, horny substance. The only sponges likely to
be preserved are those whose spicules have been fused into a rigid framework. Few of these
forms are common in Paleozoic rocks.
Astraeospongia
Hydnoceras
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Phylum: Bryozoa
Common Name or Members: moss animals
Habitat: Marine
Periods of Existence: Ordovician to Recent: possibly also Upper Cambrian
Description: All are colonial, but their colonies are usually small. Bryozoans may be
encrusting, massive, branching, or sheet like.
Encrusting
Massive
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/excuse-me-sir-theres-a-moss-animal-in-my-lake/
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Branching
Fenestrate
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Archimedes
Rhombopora
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Phylum: Hemichordata
Class: Graptolithina
Common Name or members: graptolites - ‘writing on rock’ (Greek)
Habitat: Marine
Periods of Existence: Cambrian to Carboniferous (EXTINCT)
Description: Very intricate shapes are formed by these colonies of tiny filter-feeding
organisms. Key index fossils for the Ordovician and Silurian Periods.
Graptolite
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Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Tabulata
Common name or Members: tabulate coral or honeycomb coral
Periods of Existence: Ordovician through Permian
Description: Tabulates are a strictly Paleozoic group. Tabulates are characterized by
inconspicuous septa and well-developed horizontal platforms under the calices. The platforms
are usually straight and complete. All tabulates are colonial. Their coralites are typically long,
straight, slender tubes and may be elliptical, circular or polygonal in cross section. The walls of
the tubes may have pores.
Tabulata
Halysites
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Favosites
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Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Rugosa
Common Name or Members: tetracorals, horn corals
Habitat: Virtually all cnidarians are marine.
Periods of Existence: Ordovician through Permian
Description: Rugosa are usually large and may be solitary or colonial with a solid external
calcite skeleton. Their basic shape is that of an inverted cone. Solitary rouge corals are curved
or erect and can be short and wide or tall and cylindrical.
Rugosa
Heliophyllum
Hexagonaria
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Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Scleractinia Common name or Members: stony corals or hard corals
Periods of Existence: Triassic to Recent
Description: Scleractinia appeared after a period of millions of years without any hard corals.
Colonial or sometimes solitary corallites of aragonite.
Septastraea
Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Scyphozoa
Common name or Members: jellyfish
Periods of Existence: Ediacaran to Recent
Description: Soft-bodied free-swimming medusa-stage forms that capture prey with tentacles
covered with cnidocysts (stinging cells) then digested extra-cellularly with secreted enzymes. Rarely
fossilized, but many from Pennsylvanian deltaic deposits from Mazon Creek, Illinois.
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Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Common Name or members: Shrimp, Lobsters, Crabs, Barnacles
Periods of Existence: Cambrian to Recent
Description: A group united by their characteristic bilateral symmetry and segmented, hard
exoskeleton. Crustaceans which include shrimps, crabs and lobsters are members of a special
group of arthropods called Decapoda. All have 5 pairs of legs with one or more pairs equipped
with a pincer.
. Shrimp
Lobster
Crab
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Horseshoe crab
Barnacles (Balanus)
Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Merostomata
Order: Eurypterida
Common Name or Members: sea scorpions, eurypterids
Periods of Existence: Ordovician through Permian
Habitat: shallow marine, brackish, probably some crawled a bit on to land
Description: Extinct group of arthropods related to arachnids that grew to be the largest known arthropods (8
ft in length). The name means ‘wide’ (eury-) ‘wing’ (pteron) in Greek referring to their swimming paddles.
This first really big predator dominated shallow seas of the Ordovician.
Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta
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Common Name or Members: insects
Periods of Existence: Devonian to Recent
Description: Most successful clade in the history of animals. Insecta are the primary members
of the Subphyllum Hexapoda (Greek for six legs). Segmented into three-part body (head,
thorax and abdomen) and found in virtually all environments, although primarily terrestrial.
Fossils are rare due to small size and delicate non-mineralized exoskeleton. Many fossils are
from the Eocene Green River Formation (light almost white limestone) of
Utah/Colorado/Wyoming.
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Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Trilobita
Common Name or Members: trilobites
Periods of Existence: Lower Cambrian through Permian
Description: Trilobites are named for the three longitudinal lobes of their bodies. A raised
middle lobe begins at the head and runs down into the tail, and a flatter lobe is present at each
side of the middle one. The trilobite body is also divided into three sections: the head, the
thorax and the tail. Since it was not calcified, the underside of the trilobite skeleton was never
preserved. Many trilobite fossils are internal molds of the dorsal skeleton.
Elrathia
Cryptolithus
Isotelus
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Phacops
Calymene
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Phylum: Brachiopoda
Common Name or Members: brachiopods
Habitat: All are marine
Periods of Existence: Cambrian to Recent
Description: All brachiopods have a shell with two valves. Each valve is a mirror image of the
other. When the valves of a brachiopod are closed, its form is often egg-shaped or flat. The
ventral valve is usually larger than the dorsal valve and extends farther beyond the hinge. An
“articulate” brachiopod is one with a moveable connection between its valves. An “inarticulate”
brachiopod relies upon muscles to hold its valves together.
Class: Inarticulata (no hinges or teeth/sockets)
Lingula
Class: Articulata (hinges with teeth/sockets)
Atrypa
Mucrospirifer
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Platystrophia
Rafinesquina
Leptaena
Composita
Juresania
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Rhynchonellida
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Phylum: Mollusca
Phylum: Mollusca Class: Bivalvia
Common Name or members: clams cockles, mussels, oysters and scallops
Habitat: Most are marine, but some in lakes and streams.
Periods of Existence: Cambrian to Recent
Description: Almost all bivalves have shells composed of two parts called valves. The dorsal
side of the animal is at the hinge line, and the ventral side is down. Each valve is typically a
mirror image of the other. The shell is typically thick and solid, and is composed either of
aragonite (most) or calcite (oysters).
Exogyra
Gryphaea
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Pecten
Pholadomya
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Phylum: Mollusca Class: Cephalopoda
Common Name of members: squids, cuttlefish, octopods, and nautilus
Periods of Existence: Upper Cambrian to Recent
Description: The first fossil cephalopods had straight shells.
Subclass: Ammonoidea
Common Name of members: Ammonites based on their resemblance to coiled rams'
horns. Pliny the Elder (d. 79 AD near Pompeii) called fossils of these animals ammonis
cornua ("horns of Ammon") because the Egyptian god Ammon was depicted wearing ram's
horns.[1]
Often the name of an ammonite genus ends in -ceras, which is Greekfor "horn".
Periods of Existence: Devonian to Cretaceous (EXTINCT)
Description: Highly mobile predator that dominated the Mesozoic and serves as one of the most
common index fossils. Controlled their buoyancy in water using a siphuncle with chambered,
planispiral coiled shells. Shells are always coiled at least in part – if only the oldest, original section, as
in Baculites (a heteromorphic ammonite). Siphuncle is ON OUTSIDE EDGE of chambers. Suture
lines are always wavy, zigzag or very complex. Shells are frequently ornamented with ribs.
Goniatite
Ceratite
Ammonite
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Dactylioceras
Baculites
Subclass: Nautiloidea
Common Name or members: nautiloids
Periods of Existence: Upper Cambrian to Recent
Description: Dominant predators of the early Paleozoic, especially the Ordovician. Controlled
their buoyancy in water using a siphuncle with chambered shells (usually straight but most
recent genus Nautilus is coiled). Siphuncle is CENTRAL to shell chambers. Straight or virtually
straight sutures and smooth shells with NO ribs.
Orthoceras
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Nautilus Subclass: Coleoidea
Order: Belemnitida
Common Name or members: belemnites
Periods of Existence: Jurassic and Cretaceous
Description: Extinct, squid-like nektonic predators of the Mesozoic. Belemnites had an
internal shell composed of three parts. One retained the chambered buoyancy control of their
ancestors, the other part was called a ‘rostrum’: a solid, single crystal of calcite shaped like a
bullet or fat pencil.
Belemnite
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