Camptostroma

Camptostroma
Temporal range: Early Cambrian
Artist's reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Echinodermata
Class: †Edrioasteroidea
Genus: †Camptostroma
Species: †C. roddyi
Binomial name
Camptostroma roddyi
Hundt 1939

Camptostroma roddyi is an extinct echinoderm from the Bonnia-Olenellus Zone the Early Cambrian Kinzers Formation near York and Lancaster, Southeastern Pennsylvania.[1] In life, it would have resembled a cupcake, with the axial skeleton forming a star pattern on the upper surface. It was originally thought, on the basis of its medusoid shape, to be a jellyfish-like organism, but the fossils themselves clearly rule out the possibility of a gelatinous body - the stereom plates are clearly preserved and possess the calcitic cleavage pattern diagnostic of echinoderms.[1] It has been placed in a class of basal echinoderms, the Edrioasteroids.[2]

Other species have been described from time to time, but all have since been reassigned to other genera - and often different phyla.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Durham, J. W. (1 September 1966). "Camptostroma, an Early Cambrian Supposed Scyphozoan, Referable to Echinodermata". Journal of Paleontology. 40 (5): 1009–1255. ISSN 0022-3360. JSTOR 1301996.
  2. 1 2 Witt, L.; Horne, M. K. (1 September 1960). "Cotton". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 331: i–x+1–188. doi:10.1177/000271626033100102. ISSN 0002-7162. JSTOR 1034497.


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