Namapoikia

Namapoikia
Temporal range: 549 million years ago (Terminal Ediacaran)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: incertæ sedis
Genus: Namapoikia
Wood et al. 2002
Species: N. rietoogensis
Wood et al. 2002

Namapoikia rietoogensis is among the earliest known animals to produce a calcareous (probably aragonite) skeleton.[1] Known from the Ediacaran period, before the Cambrian explosion of calcifying animals, the organism grew up to a metre in diameter and resembles a colonial sponge or cnidarian.[2] It was an encruster, filling vertical fissures in the reefs in which it originally grew.[3]

The fossil was first found in the Omkyk Member from Rietoog in southern Namibia, in association with another calcifying fossil, Cloudina.

See also

References

  1. Susannah M. Porter (1 June 2007). "Seawater Chemistry and Early Carbonate Biomineralization". Science 316 (5829): 1302. Bibcode:2007Sci...316.1302P. doi:10.1126/science.1137284. PMID 17540895.
  2. Proterozoic Modular Biomineralized Metazoan from the Nama Group, Namibia: Rachel A Wood, John P. Grotzinger, J. A. D. Dickson: Science 28 June 2002: 2383 doi:10.1126/science.1071599 PMID 12089440
  3. Grotzinger, J.P.; Watters, W.A.; Knoll, A.H. (2000). "Calcified metazoans in thrombolite-stromatolite reefs of the terminal Proterozoic Nama Group, Namibia". Paleobiology 26 (3): 334–359. doi:10.1666/0094-8373(2000)026.