Vauxia

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Vauxia
Temporal range: Cambrian Stage 3 - Late Silurian[1]
VauxiaBurgess.jpg
Vauxia from the Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian)
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Porifera
Class: Demospongiae
Order: Verongiida
Family:
Genus: Vauxia
Walcott, 1920
Species

Vauxia is an extinct genus of demosponge that had a distinctive branching mode of growth. Each branch consisted of a network of strands. Vauxia also had a skeleton of spongin (flexible organic material) common to modern day sponges. Much like Choia and other sponges, Vauxia fed by extracting nutrients from the water.

Vauxia is named after Mount Vaux, a mountain in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. It was first described in 1920 by Charles Doolittle Walcott.[2]

Vauxia fossils are found in North America, specifically in the United States and Canada.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ Botting, J. (2007). "'Cambrian' demosponges in the Ordovician of Morocco: Insights into the early evolutionary history of sponges". Geobios. 40 (6): 737–748. doi:10.1016/j.geobios.2007.02.006.
  2. ^ Walcott, C. D. (1920). "Cambrian geology and paleontology IV:6—Middle Cambrian Spongiae". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 67: 261–364.
  3. ^ Paleobiology Database

External links[]

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