令人印象深刻的 Hyolitha - 动物化石 - Cavernolites senex (Marek, 1983) - 9.5 cm - 7 cm

Spectacular plate with a complete specimen of Cavernolites senex, an primitive and enigmatic hyolith (Hyolitha) that lived during the Ordovician. The specimen is perfectly preserved. The characteristic striations of the operculum are clearly visible. The plate contains 1 complete specimen. There is a plate and counterplate. Specimens with this level of preservation are extremely rare. The contrast between the fossils and the matrix is spectacular. The extraordinary preservation of the fossils allows observing in meticulous detail the delicate structures of Cavernolites. The preparation of the specimens has been extremely laborious, as the fossils are extremely delicate. A specimen worthy of a museum.

The hyoliths (Hyolitha) are a class of small conical-shelled lophophorates that lived in the Paleozoic era. Their fossils range from the early Cambrian to the late Permian. Their calcareous shells, probably aragonitic, are conical, with triangular or semicircular cross-sections and usually flattened on the ventral side. They possessed a covering or operculum, usually articulated.

The taxonomic position of hyoliths has always been uncertain, until in 2017 their inclusion in Lophophorata was determined, a group that includes brachiopods and bryozoans thanks to the study of specimens that preserve impressions of soft tissues.

The animal Cavernolites had solitary, epibenthic semi-sessile habits, i.e., lived on the seafloor substrate with very limited mobility, and were suspension feeders, feeding on particles suspended in the water that they trapped with the tentacles of the lophophore.

Measurements of Cavernolites: 33 x 14 mm

Plate 1: 159 g; 9.5 x 7 x 2 cm
Plate 2: 176 g; 8 x 6.5 x 2 cm

Plastic stand included.

The Fezouata Formation fossil beds, near the Moroccan city of Zagora, provide a rich and varied fossil record with extraordinary preservation, to the point that soft parts or soft-bodied animals are recorded with some frequency. This type of preservation is similar, though temporally later, to the famous Burgess Shale (Canada).

These fossils are between 480 and 472 million years old. At that time Morocco was an ocean and located near the South Pole.