Cantabrigiaster

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Cantabrigiaster
Temporal range: Early Ordovician,
~480 Ma
↓
Cantabrigiaster fezouataensis.png
Holotype
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Echinodermata
Subphylum:
Asterozoa
Order:
†Somasteroidea
Genus:
†Cantabrigiaster

Hunter & Ortega-Hernández, 2021
Binomial name
†Cantabrigiaster fezouataensis
Hunter & Ortega-Hernández, 2021

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[]

  1. ^ "New starfish-like fossil reveals evolution in action". phys.org. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ "New starfish-like fossil reveals evolution in action". phys.org. Retrieved 2021-03-07.


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