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Eocrinoidea

Eocrinoidea
Fossil range: Cambrian–Silurian
Eocrinoid holdfasts (Middle Ordovician, Utah)
Eocrinoid holdfasts (Middle Ordovician, Utah)
Colourful reconstruction of Gogia ojenai
Colourful reconstruction of Gogia ojenai
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Echinodermata
Subphylum: Blastozoa
Class: Eocrinoidea
Jaekel, 1899
Included groups
Excluded groups

Blastoids


Blastoids

The Eocrinoidea are an extinct class of echinoderms that lived between the Early Cambrian and Late Silurian periods. They are the earliest known group of stalked, arm-bearing echinoderms, and were the most common echinoderms during the Cambrian.

The eocrinoids were a paraphyletic group that may have been ancestral to six other classes: Rhombifera, Diploporita, Coronoidea, Blastoidea, Parablastoidea, and Paracrinoidea. The earliest genera had a short holdfast and irregularly structured plates. Later forms had a fully developed stalk with regular rows of plates. They were benthic suspension feeders, with five ambulacra on the upper surface, surrounding the mouth and extending into a number of narrow arms. An unusual Ordovician form was the conical Bolboporites with its single brachiole. See also List of echinodermata orders.



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Wikipedia

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