Fossils

Dendroidea (benthic)

, Taxonomy: GRAPTOLITES (Phylum Hemichordata) Diet: Graptolites were probably suspension feeders. They would have fed by straining plankton and other pieces of food from the water. Like their living relatives (animals called pterobranchs), they probably used tiny hairs (cilia) attached to a tentacle to grab food. Habitat: They are found only in Palaeozoic rocks such as those in Scotland, Wales and north-western England. The oldest dendroids occur in Middle Cambrian rocks, but they can be found in rocks as young as the Carboniferous. Planktonic graptolites are particularly common in Ordovician and Silurian shales and mudstones. Time Period: the cone-like, largely bottom-living dendroids, and the planktonic graptoloids. They lived between the Cambrian and Carboniferous periods, about 520 to 350 million years ago. Key Features: bushy/fan-shaped, resemble heiroglyphics on the rock, hence the name. Mode of Preservation: probably from silt from the ocean floor.

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Taxonomy: Diet: Habitat: Time Period: Region: Key Features: Mode of Preservation:

Class Insecta (Insects)

Taxonomy: ARTHROPODS (Phylum Arthropoda), Subphylum Chelicerata Diet: For instance mosquito larvae feed on planktonic algae, adult females feed on blood and adult males feed on nectar and fallen fruit. Carnivores - There are many insects that eat other animals, as it happens, their prey are often also insects, e.g: Wasps.; Some insects drink their food, others chew, most insects are herbivores, some are carnivores and some feed from decaying materials Habitat: high diversity of habitats (from deserts to polar regions) Region: insects trapped in amber lived in or near wooded areas, polar regions? Time Period: The insect fossil record extends back some 400 million years to the lower Devonian, while the Pterygotes (winged insects) underwent a major radiation in the Carboniferous. The Endopterygota underwent another major radiation in the Permian. Key Features: resin, amber Mode of Preservation: fossilized by resin and amber. https://sites.google.com/site/animalbiologyspring2010/insects

Calymene

Taxonomy: ARTHROPODS (Phylum Arthropoda), Subphylum Chelicerata, Diet: early trilobites seem to have hunted down aquatic worms and eaten them alive. It's been theorized that a few other species evolved to eat plankton or algae—with some making use of a filter-feeding mechanism. Habitat: habitat that is in or on a sea or ocean containing high concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids (typically >35 grams dissolved salts per litre). Region: It is found in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Time Period: the Ordovician period (505 million to 438 million years ago). Its distinctive appearance makes the genus a useful guide fossil for Ordovician rocks and time. They appeared abruptly in the early part of the Cambrian Period, and came to dominate the Cambrian and early Ordovician seas. A prolonged decline then set in before they finally became extinct at the end of the Permian Period, about 250 million years ago. Key Features: Calymene trilobites are small, typically 2 cm in length. The cephalon is the widest part of the animal and the thorax usually has 13 segments.[4]. Mode of Preservation: Geologists know that they were marine animals because of the rocks in which they are found and the types of fossils associated with them. Specimens of Calymene from the Silurian Period. Calymene was able to roll into a ball for protection. Our knowledge of them has been gained from the study of their fossils, usually impressions left of their shells after burial in sediment which subsequently hardened into rock.

Eldredgeops

Taxonomy: ARTHROPODS (Phylum Arthropoda), Subphylum Chelicerata, Class Tribolites. Diet: Due to their large eyes and large glabells, they were probably active predators. Habitat: (marine) ranging from deep open water to shallow continental shelves. Time Period: Eldredgeops is a genus of trilobites in the order Phacopida, family Phacopidae, known from the late Middle and earliest Upper Devonian (416 million to 358 million years ago) of Morocco and the USA. Key Features: Even though their body design is rather plain and simple, the large glabella (nose looking area), and bulbous eyes make Eldredgeops one of the more recognizable trilobites. Mode of Preservation: These minerals make an impact on our original trilobite as well. Over the course of millions of years they dissolve away the outer shell, sometimes replacing the molecules of exoskeleton with molecules of calcite or other minerals. In time the entire shell is replaced leaving rock in the exact shape of the trilobite. That is the fossilization process at work.

Elrathia

Taxonomy: ARTHROPODS (Phylum Arthropoda), Subphylum Chelicerata, Class Tribolites. Diet: Particle Feeder, They scavanged the ocean floor Habitat: Elrathia was small and lived at the bottom of the sea, unlike its relative Carolinites which swam upside down near the surface. It was near the bottom of the food chain, because it was small and easy to catch. Elrathia lived in the exaerobic zone, where oxygen levels were so low that it would hurt most organisms. Region: These are North Americas most common Trilobite. Found in wheeler shale rock in Utah. Time Period: These are specimens of Elrathia kingii, a Cambrian period trilobite from the Wheeler Shale in Utah, some 515 Million years old. Quite common trilobites, they are preserved in a black calcite that shows beautifully against the gray matrix, and specimens of Elrathia grace collections all over the world. Key Features: Elrathia have a wide thorax and have short genial spines on their cephalon. Other than that, they are rather plain looking trilobites. Elrathia are small trilobites. They are usually around an inch in length. Small ones are around 1/8" (a few mm) in size, while large ones can reach lengths of around 2 inches (50 mm). Mode of Preservation: Elrathia trilobites could survive in low oxygen environments, lower than what most living things could survive. Living in low oxygen areas allowed these trilobites to easily fossilize. This makes them the most common trilobite fossil in North America.

Cryptolithus

Taxonomy: ARTHROPODS (Phylum Arthropoda), Subphylum Chelicerata, Class Tribolites. Diet: early trilobites seem to have hunted down aquatic worms and eaten them alive. It's been theorized that a few other species evolved to eat plankton or algae—with some making use of a filter-feeding mechanism. Habitat: They describe the habitat as being water of at least 30 meters (approximately 98 feet) in depth with muddy sediment. The trilobite was thought to be blind and a bottom feeder Region: enus of trilobites (extinct arthropods) found as fossils in Europe and North America Time Period: the Ordovician period (505 million to 438 million years ago). Its distinctive appearance makes the genus a useful guide fossil for Ordovician rocks and time. Key Features: The cephalon of cryptoluthus is wide and contains main small holes. These holes were used for filter feeding. Cryptolithus also have very long genial spines. The spines are longer than the trilobite. Mode of Preservation: These minerals make an impact on our original trilobite as well. Over the course of millions of years they dissolve away the outer shell, sometimes replacing the molecules of exoskeleton with molecules of calcite or other minerals. In time the entire shell is replaced leaving rock in the exact shape of the trilobite. That is the fossilization process at work.

Eurypterida

Taxonomy: ARTHROPODS (Phylum Arthropoda), Subphylum Chelicerata. Diet: They were probably opportunistic feeders, Preying on and/or scavenging on smaller animals, including smaller eurypterids. Physical Appearance: Eurypterids have a tail, legs, and pincer like appendages. Habitat: Most have been found in rocks that were laid down in brackish water or freshwater; the earliest groups may have lived in the sea, and some eurypterids may have spent at least short intervals on land Region: The specimens were found in the Bertie Formation in New York. Eurypterids are only found in coastal and inland sea deposits on the former supercontinent of Laurussia, which is North America, Europe, and the western part of Asia Time Period: The earliest known eurypterids date to the Darriwilian stage of the Ordovician period 467.3 million years ago. The group is likely to have appeared first either during the Early Ordovician or Late Cambrian period. With approximately 250 species, the Eurypterida is the most diverse Paleozoic chelicerate order. Key Features: looks like a scorpion "sea scorpion," long tails and the spine-like appendage at the tip. Mode of Preservation: have such amazingly good preservation that their external structure is the best known of all extinct animals, Upper Silurian rock unit in New York.

Rafinesquina

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata Diet: filter-feeding sea creatures Habitat: While Rafinesquina lived on the ocean floor, lingulids lived in the bottom sediment, buried just deep enough so that the tops of their shells reached the water, allowing them to breathe and filter feed, Rafinesquina's members were epifaunal, meaning they lived on top of the seafloor, not buried within it, and were suspension feeders. Time Period: 450 million years ago Fossils from the Cincinnati area are renowned for their abundance, variety and ease of collecting. The animals that produced those fossils lived at the end of the Ordovician Period 450 million years ago, and the last part of the Ordovician Period is known to geologists as the Cincinnatian Series. Paleozoic (Ordovician) Region: Rafinesquina specimens had a cosmopolitan distribution, and their fossils can be found in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. A common New York Brachiopod. Key Features: oncavo-convex profile, with radiating striae of alternating size which are crossed with finer concentric striae.[3] Their width is usually greater than their length, Members of this genus had shells that grew in increments, with each increment forming a layer of the shell, - medium to large, thin (almost appears as if there is only one valve present), semi-circular, articulate brachiopod with a wide straight hinge, fine costae and growth lines, A convex pedicle valve and a concave brachial valve, strongest curvature near the anterior margin Mode of Preservation:

Platystrophia

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata Diet: suspension feeder, Suspension feeding is the capture and ingestion of food particles that are suspended in water. These particles can include phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, and detritus. All of the major groups of animals and protozoans include species that suspension feed. Habitat: It usually lived in marine lime mud and sands. Marine epifaunal (epifaunal:Aquatic animals, such as starfish, flounder, or barnacles, that live on the surface of a sea or lake bottom or on the surface of a submerged substrate, such as rocks or aquatic plants and animals, but that do not burrow into or beneath the surface.) Time Period: genus of extinct brachiopods (lamp shells) occurring as fossils in marine rocks of the Middle Ordovician epoch to about the middle of the Silurian period (i.e., from about 472 million to 423 million years ago). Region: Lived in Asia, Europe, N. America, and S. America. Key Features: Each valve of the shell is convex in profile, and the hinge line between the valves is wide. Surface markings on the shell include prominent angular ridges and intervening linear depressions Mode of Preservation: Fossil brachiopods are commonly preserved in rocks such as limestone, sandstone or mudstone that formed from marine sediments. Brachiopods are often found fossilised as preserved shells, internal and external moulds, as well as casts. In places they occur in such numbers they formed banks of shells.

Rhynchonellida

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata, Order Rhynchonellida Diet: this lampshell lived as a stationary epifaunal suspension feeder. Suspension feeding is the capture and ingestion of food particles that are suspended in water. These particles can include phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, and detritus. Some suspension feeders are primarily grazers of planktonic algae, while others are carnivores, and some that feed at the sediment-water interface are primarily detritivores. Some suspension feeders are largely nonselective omnivores, whereas others display strong preferences for certain particles according to size or chemical properties. Habitat: fossil locations cited were on continental shelves, probably in tropical, shallow coral seas, where this lampshell lived as a stationary epifaunal suspension feeder. Time Period: The earliest fossil rhynchonellids are from the Ordovician period (485.4 million years ago - 443.8) million years ago. During the Mesozoic Era (251.902 million years ago - 65 million years ago), rhynchonellids were the most abundant brachiopods Region: is known from the later Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) of England and Germany. The specimen that the description is based upon was collected in Fuller's Earth Rock, near Bath, Somerset, England (lectotype). Further specimens were collected from Weymouth, Bruton, Wiltshire, Gloucester, and Lamyat Beacon, Dyrham, Avon, Bristol Channel, Whatley, Somerset, and Sengenthal, Germany. Key Features: s a species of extinct, small-sized brachiopods, a marine rhynchonellate lampshell in the family Rhynchonellidae. It is roughly 9/16 inch (1.4 cm), and has about 21 ribs fanning out from the hinge, typically biconvex, astrophic, impunctate, and uniplicate, commonly with costae forming a characteristic zigzag commissure and with well-developed deltidial plates, dorsal median septum, hinge plates, and calcareous lophophore support structures known as crura, which support the base of the lophophore surrounding the mouth Mode of Preservation:

Composita

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata. Diet: Articulates are generally suspension feeders, taking in minute particles of nourishment from the water. The lopho-phore is primarily a feeding and respiratory organism. To feed, the lampshell valves open a small gap in the front to allow water to flow over the lophophore. Habitat: (marine) most articulate lamp-shells live in moderately deep water as low as 1,500 ft (450 m) in polar waters and cryptic (hidden) environments. They are classified as epifaunal; that is, they live on the sea floor or attached to other animals or objects underwater. Time Period: found as fossils in marine rocks of the Carboniferous to Permian periods (from 359 million to 251 million years ago). Region: Composita had a cosmopolitan global distribution, having lived on every continent except Antarctica. Key Features: Composita is abundant and widespread as a fossil, especially in Permian deposits. The shell is smooth, small, and distinctive in form; a fold and sulcus (groove) are present in the valves, and the pedicle opening (for the anchoring foot) is round. Mode of Preservation: minerals in water, marine fossil.

Mucrospirifer

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata. Diet: feed by opening the shell and bringing in food-bearing currents by lashing of the cilia (hairlike structures) attached to the filaments of the lophophore, a horseshoe-shaped organ that filters food particles from the seawater, filter-feeders. Habitat: (marine) Mucrospirifer lived in muddy marine sediments, and were attached to the sea floor via the pedicle. Time Period: Mucrospirifer, genus of extinct brachiopods (lamp shells) found as fossils in Middle and Upper Devonian marine rocks (the Devonian Period began 416 million years ago and lasted about 57 million years). Their first appearance in the fossil record is in the Ordovician Period. However they did not become abundant until the Devonian. Spiriferids and brachiopods in general, hit the height of diversity during the Devonian Period. This group survived the Great Permian Extinction and eventually became extinct during the Jurassic Period. Region: Michigan, Ontario, and Ohio. Key Features: The shell sometimes looks like two seashells stuck together. a long straight hinge line that extends to a point. This gives them a distinctive wing like appearance. The valves are biconvex and have a pronounced fold and sulcus. Mucrospirifers used a pedicle to anchor themselves to the sea floor. Mode of Preservation:

Atrypa

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata. Diet: filter feeds and is sessile as adults, Brachiopods are suspension feeders, which means that they extract food (plankton, particles of dead organic matter, etc.) out of water that they pump in and out of their shells. Habitat: (marine), miles below the sea, Brachiopods live on the ocean floor. They have been found living in a wide range of water depths from very shallow waters of rocky shorelines to ocean floor three and a half miles beneath the ocean surface. They are known from many places, ranging from the warm tropical waters of the Caribbean to cold Antarctic seas. Time Period: the Silurian through the Early Carboniferous (444 million to 318 million years ago), maybe even earlier. Region: Wisconsin, Colombia Key Features: The genus is easily recognized by its distinctive concentric growth lines and peculiar outgrowths of the shell. It is unusual that in some Devonian exposures the abundant remains of only the pedicle (foot) valves of Atrypa occur; the brachial (upper) valves are rare or absent—apparently because of some sort of selective ocean current action. a genus of brachiopod with shells round to short egg-shaped, covered with many fine radial ridges (or costae), that split further out and growthlines perpendicular to the costae and 2-3 times wider spaced. Mode of Preservation: These minerals make an impact on our original trilobite as well. Over the course of millions of years they dissolve away the outer shell, sometimes replacing the molecules of exoskeleton with molecules of calcite or other minerals. In time the entire shell is replaced leaving rock in the exact shape of the trilobite. That is the fossilization process at work.

Leptaena

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Articulata. Diet: filter-feeding, suspension feeder, organic matter, plankton Habitat: Leptaena was a very common brachiopod that lived on the surface of the Silurian sea bed, one half of its shell partially buried in the sediment, the other above it. Time Period: Silurian (443 million to 416 million years ago) to Early Carboniferous (359.2 (so probably ended at about 350 million years ago) to 299 million years ago*) Region: Cincinatti, Indiana, Baltic Key Features: It had an unusal distinctive shape as one valve was concave and the other convex. Mode of Preservation: idk probably the same as all other marine animals.

Lingula

Taxonomy: BRACHIOPODS (Phylum Brachiopoda), Class Class Inarticulata. Diet: when feeding, Lingula protrudes its anterior (front) end above the mud and arranges its setae (bristle-like structures) into three tubes. These channel the water into lateral incoming and medial, or central, outgoing currents. Some coralliform brachiopods of the Permian Period (299 million to 251 million years ago) are thought to have fed by rapid beating of the dorsal valve, causing a sucking in and expulsion of food-bearing water. Some ostreiform (oyster-shaped) types of the same period are believed to have fed by gentle pulsation of the dorsal valve. Habitat: lives in burrows in barren sandy coastal seafloor and feeds by filtering detritus from the water. It can be detected by a short row of three openings through which it takes in water (sides) and expels it again (middle) Time Period: Cambrian, Bivalves may be attached to a substrate with byssus filaments, that extend from between the shells. The Lingulata brachiopods have existed from the Cambrian period to the present, a time span of over 500 million years! The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya. Key Features: Lingula inhabits a vertical burrow in soft sediments, with the front face upward near the surface of the sea bed. The cilia on the lophophore create a current through the mantle cavity, which ensures the supply of food particles and oxygen. It has two unadorned organo-phosphatic valves and a long fleshy stalk. Mode of Preservation: Fossil brachiopods are commonly preserved in rocks such as limestone, sandstone or mudstone that formed from marine sediments. Brachiopods are often found fossilised as preserved shells, internal and external moulds, as well as casts. In places they occur in such numbers they formed banks of shells.

Archimedes

Taxonomy: BRYOZOANS (Phylum Bryozoa) (Growth forms: branching, massive, fenestrate) Diet: filter feed tiny plankton, lived in small holes in the structure, where they would reach out and grab food. Habitat: aquatic organism and lives on the seafloor. It's part of the bryozoan group. Its age range is Mississippian. Archimedes was common in the Upper Mississippian marine rocks of North America. Time Period: Carboniferous Period about 324 million years ago. Key Features: These were fenestrate bryozoans, which meant they grew in fan-like patterns (in this case they grew up in a screwlike fashion) and had 2 parallel rows of zooids. Screw-like and made of calcium carbonate. Mode of Preservation: Most fossils of Archimedes do not preserve the spiral wall. Instead, they only preserve the unusual stalk.

Rhombopora

Taxonomy: BRYOZOANS (Phylum Bryozoa) (Growth forms: branching, massive, fenestrate) Diet: plankton and bacteria by sweeping the surrounding water with their lophophore. They are mainly eaten by nudibranchs (sea slugs) and sea spiders. Habitat: Bryozoans are colonial animals that are widely distributed in marine benthic environments and play an important role in temperate and cold-water oceanic shelves as habitat providers. temperate; tropical; polar; saltwater or marine; freshwater. Aquatic Biomes; pelagic; benthic; reef; oceanic vent; lakes and ponds; rivers Time Period: Rhombopora is an extinct genus of bryozoa. It existed from the Ordovician to Permian period (457.5 - 252.17 million years ago) Key Features: Wholy, intervening angular mesopores opening on the surface, but this, unlike that genus, has a prominent tubular axial canal, somewhat like that in Rhabdomeson. Mode of Preservation: ?

Hexagonaria

Taxonomy: CORALS (Phylum Cnidaria), Order Rugosa (rugose corals) Diet: Particle Feeder They scavanged the ocean floo Habitat: A warm shallow sea covered the State. This warm, sunny sea was an ideal habitat for marine life. A Devonian reef had sheltered clams, cephalopods, corals, crinoids, trilobites, fish, and many other life forms Time Period: Hexagonaria lived during the Devonian period, from 416-369.2 million years ago Region: the American midwest, as well as some locations in Canada, England, Germany, and Asia. Key Features: usually look like ordinary limestone in a color range from light grey to dark grey. The distinctive, six-sided "rays of the rising sun" pattern pops when the rock's surface is wet, which is why it's easier to spy Petoskey Stones along the shore or by wading out into the water; has hexagons, part of a coral reef. Mode of Preservation: formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in the northwestern (and some in the northeastern) portion of Michigan's lower peninsula.

Heliophyllum (horn coral)

Taxonomy: CORALS (Phylum Cnidaria), Order Rugosa (rugose corals) Diet: with an efficient system of feeding that utilized its multitude of tentacles without the help of cilia, which thus were able to generate currents to promote efficient sediment cleansing. They had many tentacles sticking out to gather their food, plankton, from the seawater moving past them.. The tentacles gave them a flower like appearance. Habitat: (marine) horn corals were so plentiful they helped to create reefs on the ocean floor. Region: Small horn corals can be found in rocks of Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, and less commonly in Pennsylvanian strata in Kentucky. Time Period: During the Paleozoic Era horn corals were so plentiful they helped to create reefs on the ocean floor. All corals belong to the phylum of animals called cnidaria. They are related to jellyfish. ... The oldest of the Rugosa corals are found in rocks from the Ordovician Period. Key Features: looks like a "horn," hence the name. All horn corals live in a cup called a calyx (KAY-licks). The calyx often has radially alligned ridges or grooves, which are called septa. These septa were the skeletal support plates for the coral animal or polyp. Mode of Preservation: The fossil is the skeleton of the coral animal or polyp. They built these cone shaped structures from calcium carbonate that came from the ocean water. The animal lived at the top of the cone. As the animal got bigger it added more material to the cone

Septastraea

Taxonomy: CORALS (Phylum Cnidaria), Order Scleratinia (stony corals). Diet: Corals also eat by catching tiny floating animals called zooplankton. At night, coral polyps come out of their skeletons to feed, stretching their long, stinging tentacles to capture critters that are floating by. Prey are pulled into the polyps' mouths and digested in their stomachs. Habitat: (marine) It lived in warm, shallow water reefs. Time Period: Lived from the Miocene to the Pleistocene during the Neogene and Quaternary periods. Ordovician to Devonian age (488 million to 359 million years old. Key Features: Septastraea's morphology is variable, being able to grow into just about any shape. This coral can be found in several forms: large masses, tall branching forms, and encrusting various types of shells. These different forms grew in response to differences in wave energy in an environment. For example, the encrusting form grew where wave energy was high, since any large branching form that grew would be toppled over. Fossil corals are white, though they were doubtless colorful like today's corals when they were alive. Mode of Preservation: The "soft" tissues of an organism, such as skin, muscles, and internal organs, are typically not preserved as fossils. Exceptions to this rule occur when conditions favor rapid burial and mineralization or very slow decay. The absence of oxygen and limited disruption of the sediment by burrowing are both important for limiting decay in those deposits where soft tissues are preserved

Favosites

Taxonomy: CORALS (Phylum Cnidaria), Order Tabulata (tabulate corals) Diet: Favosites, like many corals, thrived in warm sunlit seas, feeding by filtering microscopic plankton with their stinging tentacles and often forming part of reef complexes. Habitat: Like all coral, Favosites corals thrived in warm, shallow sunlit seas. They were a colony type forming colorful quilt work reefs and fed by filtering microscopic plankton with their stinging tentacles (marine) Time Period: Favosites, extinct genus of corals found as fossils in marine rocks from the Ordovician to the Permian periods (between 488 million and 251 million years old). Region: Wisconsin, Kentucky Key Features: Favosites is an extinct genus of tabulate coral characterized by polygonal closely packed corallites (giving it the common name "honeycomb coral"). The walls between corallites are pierced by pores known as mural pores which allowed transfer of nutrients between polyps. Mode of Preservation: Preserved in sedimentary claystone ,tabulae.

Graptoloidea (planktic)

Taxonomy: GRAPTOLITES (Phylum Hemichordata) Diet: suspension/filter feeder on plankton. Habitat: argely confined to a deep water biotope (mesopelagic zone, characterised by dysaerobic water) where they are thought to have exploited high bioproductivity denitrification zones. (marine). Time Period: Graptolites lived from the Cambrian Period, about 510 million years ago, disappearing in the Carboniferous Period, around 320 million years ago. Graptolites that lived on the ocean floor (dend) appear in the fossil record first and became extinct later than floating graptolites. Palaeozoic time period Key Features: Spiral forms of single-branched graptolites. Mode of Preservation: .. floor muds and, if conditions were right, preserved as fossils for us to find today

Astraeospongia (calcareous sponge)

Taxonomy: KINGDOM ANIMALIA, SPONGES (Phylum Porifera) Diet: sessile filter feeders, whose main diet is dissolved organic matter and small particulate matter (bacteria) filtered from seawater by pumping activity. Habitat: Calcareous sponges live in diverse habitats. In tropical coral reefs, they dwell mainly in shaded and/or cryptic habitats and prefer calmer waters, Marine. Time Period: They are common in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, however, rare in the Cenozoic. Key Features: porous, saucer-shaped, spongy, spicules Mode of Preservation: Silurian to the Devonian

Pecten

Taxonomy: MOLLUSKS (Phylum Mollusca) Class Bivalvia (clams, oysters, mussels) Diet: Pecten maximus - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org › wiki › Pecten_maximus They are filter feeders which extract particles from the surrounding water via a feeding current which is drawn by cilia across the gills where the food particles are trapped, then taken to the mouth in a stream of mucous. Habitat: Once settled, sand, mud, gravel or living organisms coat the upper valve, and the margin of the shell, with the tentacles and eyes, is all that is visible, Lives in depression in sand or fine gravel with left valve uppermost, offshore to about 100 m Time Period: Pecten is a genus of large scallops or saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Pectinidae, the scallops. This is the type genus of the family. This genus is known in the fossil record from the Cretaceous period to the Quaternary period (age range: from 70.6 to 0.0 million years ago). Region: Pecten maximus occurs in the eastern Atlantic along the European coast from northern Norway, south to the Iberian peninsula, it has also been reported off West Africa, off the Macaronesian Islands. In Great Britain and Ireland it is distributed all round the coast but it is uncommon and localised on the eastern North Sea coast.[5] It prefers offshore waters down to 100m, Pecten maximus occurs along the European Atlantic coast from northern Norway, south to the Iberian peninsula and has also been reported off West Africa, the Azores, Canary Islands and Madeira. Key Features: characterised by having "ears" of equal size on either side of the apex. The right, or lower, valve is convex and slightly overlaps the flat left, or upper, valve, which is flat. Larger specimens have a nearly circular outline and the largest may measure 21 cm in length, while the "ears" show a few thin ribs which radiate from the beaks. The radiating ribs reach the margins of the valves and this creates a crenulated form. The left valve is normally reddish-brown while the right valve varies from white through cream to shades of pale brown contrasting with pink, red or pale yellow tints; either valve may show zigzag patterns and may also show bands and spots of red, pink or bright yellow. Mode of Preservation: A steinkern is an internal mold, or a type of fossil formed when a shell fills with mud ... shells are beautiful fossil scallops, including forms like this called Pecten

Gryphaea

Taxonomy: MOLLUSKS (Phylum Mollusca), Class Bivalvia (clams, oysters, mussels) Diet: Gryphaea like most other bivalves probably fed on plankton and other small organic sea debris. Suspension/sessile feeder. Habitat: In life the mollusc would have lived on rocks or in silt. Time Period: The Gryphaea lived in the Jurassic (200 to 145 MYA) and early Cretaceous (145 to 65 MYA) periods. Region: They are common on the east side of England especially near Whitby, though are found at most beaches in Briton. Key Features: but only two are commonly found in on the Yorkshire coast, the most common is gryphaea arcuata this shell has a very curled nature to it and good specimens show sharp growth lines. The rarer find is Gryphaea dilobotes which tends to be larger and has a more rounded aspect to it, the growth lines are well defined but have a muted worn down quality, The shells in the genus Gryphaea are often shaped like a toenail, giving rise to their common name 'Devil's Toenails', they have two parts the upper shell which cures round and the lower lid shell often not present, which is flat and splayed, the animal would have occupied the space in between, and would have looked much like the modern-day oyster as they belong to the same family. The shell may have growth lines on it's surface and even other fossilized sea creatures such as worm tubing though this is rare, One line is roughly one year so you can age them. This genus of fossil is extremely common at least in East Yorkshire, I must have hundreds of specimens, and can simply not go on the beach with out finding at least a couple, I even find them in gravel in car parks. Mode of Preservation:

Exogyra

Taxonomy: MOLLUSKS (Phylum Mollusca), Class Bivalvia (clams, oysters, mussels) Diet: Oysters are sessile benthic filter-feeders that usually sit on their large left valves with a flatter and smaller right valve on top. Exogyra stayed stable on the seafloor because of its massive weight. Habitat: Exogyra lived on solid substrates in warm seas. (The actual physical bottom of the ocean (or substrate) is generally some type of rock or sediment and can be categorized as terrogenous, biogenous or hydrogenous. ... Biogenous bottoms are common in temperate oceans less than 4,000-5,000 meters deep like the South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean.) Time Period: Exogyra, extinct molluscan genus common in shallow-water marine deposits of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods (from about 200 million to 65.5 million years ago). Region: eastern Gulf region and the carolinas. Key Features: Exogyra is characterized by its very thick shell, which attained massive proportions. The left valve, or shell, is spirally twisted, whereas the right valve is flattish and much smaller. A distinctive longitudinal pattern of ribbing is well developed in the left valve, and pitting is common. Mode of Preservation: