Cantabrigiaster
| Cantabrigiaster Temporal range: Early Ordovician,
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| Holotype | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Phylum: | Echinodermata
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| Subphylum: | |
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| Genus: | †Cantabrigiaster Hunter & Ortega-Hernández, 2021
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| Binomial name | |
| †Cantabrigiaster fezouataensis Hunter & Ortega-Hernández, 2021
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Cantabrigiaster is an extinct genus of asterozoan echinoderms from the order Somasteroidea known from the Fezouata Formation of Morocco.[1] The type species C. fezouataensis was initially described in a 2017 preprint in bioRxiv,[2] but the paper was not published until 2021 in Biology Letters after being peer-reviewed.[3] It is the oldest starfish-like fossil and would have been one of the first relatively modern animals.[4] Like other somasteroids, Cantabrigiaster is thought to be closely related to the ancestors of all modern Asterozoa (starfish and brittlestars).[3]
References[]
- ^ "New starfish-like fossil reveals evolution in action". phys.org. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
- ^ Hunter, Aaron; Ortega-Hernández, Javier (9 November 2017). "A primitive starfish ancestor from the Early Ordovician of Morocco reveals the origin of crown group Echinodermata". bioRxiv. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
- ^ a b Hunter, Aaron (20 January 2021). "A new somasteroid from the Fezouata Lagerstätte in Morocco and the Early Ordovician origin of Asterozoa". Biology Letters. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2020.0809.
- ^ "New starfish-like fossil reveals evolution in action". phys.org. Retrieved 2021-03-07.
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Categories:
- Prehistoric Asterozoa genera
- Fossil taxa described in 2021
- Prehistoric Asteroidea stubs