Rangea

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Rangea Fossil range: Ediacaran, 558-545Ma[1]
Scientific classification
Genus: Rangea Gurich 1929
Type species
R. schneiderhoehoni Gurich 1929
Species
R. arborea Glaessner & Wade 1966 R. grandis Glaessner & Wade 1966 R. longa Glaessner & Wade 1966 R. schneiderhoehoni Gürich 1929

Rangea is frond-like fossil of the Ediacaran period.

The features found in Rangea are a double-layered quilted structure, a tripartite stemless body with fourfold radial symmetry, a mucous-supported sheath, smooth surface, radial membranes, and internal organs that are a system of sacs connected by a medial canal.

Rangea is relatively small in size.

There are four known species, R. arborea, R. grandis and R. longa discovered by Glaessner & Wade in 1966, and also the original Rangea schneiderhoehoni discovered by Georg Gürich.

It is found in Namibia and Mistaken Point, Newfoundland.

Rangea seems to have lived embedded in the surface of the sediment of the sea.

Rangea has been interpreted as a pennatulacean octocoral, a sea pen, or a multinucleate eukaryotic cell.

Similar organisms are Bomakellia with fourfold symmetry, and Thaumaptilon, Charnia, Charniodiscus, Paracharnia which are other fronds. One classification scheme by Hans Pflug is class Rangeomorpha, family Rangeidae. An alternate scheme places it in the Petalonamae group. A generic term for these is rangeomorphs which display fractal branching (rather like a fern).

[edit] See also

• Ediacaran biota

[edit] References

• Glaessner, Martin F.; Wade, Mary 1966: The late Precambrian fossils from Ediacara, South Australia. Palaeontology 9 (4), pp. 599-628.
• Gürich, Georg 1930: Uber den Kuibisquarzit in Sudwestafrika, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Geologischen Gesellschaft v.82: p.637.