Phylum: Foraminifera - Webswebzoom.freewebs.com/ipursuit/Fossil-List-Pictures/Fossils to ID... ·...

Fossils to ID 2016 - Set A.doc 1 of 23 11/22/2015 10:03:00 PM

Phylum: Foraminifera

Common Name: Forams or “hole bearers” (Latin)

Habitat: Most marine plankton, some freshwater, some benthic.

Periods of Existence: Precambrian to Recent (benthic in Paleozoic, many planktonic since

Mesozoic)

Description: Heterotrophic one-celled marine protists with tests of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) through which they project many

pseudopodia (rhizopodia) used for locomotion, anchoring and to capture food. These rhizopodia often form a net (like a spider’s web)

to catch food.

Fusulinids (Triticites)

Nummulites


Phylum: Porifera

Common Name or members: sponges – ‘pore bearer’ (Latin)

Habitat: Sponges are almost entirely marine, but a few are freshwater.

Periods of Existence: Late Proterzoic [Precambrian] to Recent

Description: Sponges have an internal skeleton usually composed of needlelike, mineralized

calcite or silica spicules and/or spongin, a fibrous, horny substance. The only sponges likely to

be preserved are those whose spicules have been fused into a rigid framework. Few of these

forms are common in Paleozoic rocks.

Astraeospongia

Hydnoceras


Phylum: Bryozoa

Common Name or Members: moss animals

Habitat: Marine

Periods of Existence: Ordovician to Recent: possibly also Upper Cambrian

Description: All are colonial, but their colonies are usually small. Bryozoans may be

encrusting, massive, branching, or sheet like.

Encrusting

Massive

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/excuse-me-sir-theres-a-moss-animal-in-my-lake/

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/excuse-me-sir-theres-a-moss-animal-in-my-lake/


Branching

Fenestrate


Archimedes

Rhombopora


Phylum: Hemichordata

Class: Graptolithina

Common Name or members: graptolites - ‘writing on rock’ (Greek)

Habitat: Marine

Periods of Existence: Cambrian to Carboniferous (EXTINCT)

Description: Very intricate shapes are formed by these colonies of tiny filter-feeding

organisms. Key index fossils for the Ordovician and Silurian Periods.

Graptolite


Phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Anthozoa

Subclass: Tabulata

Common name or Members: tabulate coral or honeycomb coral

Periods of Existence: Ordovician through Permian

Description: Tabulates are a strictly Paleozoic group. Tabulates are characterized by

inconspicuous septa and well-developed horizontal platforms under the calices. The platforms

are usually straight and complete. All tabulates are colonial. Their coralites are typically long,

straight, slender tubes and may be elliptical, circular or polygonal in cross section. The walls of

the tubes may have pores.

Tabulata

Halysites


Favosites


Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Anthozoa

Subclass: Rugosa

Common Name or Members: tetracorals, horn corals

Habitat: Virtually all cnidarians are marine.


Description: Rugosa are usually large and may be solitary or colonial with a solid external

calcite skeleton. Their basic shape is that of an inverted cone. Solitary rouge corals are curved

or erect and can be short and wide or tall and cylindrical.

Rugosa

Heliophyllum

Hexagonaria


Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Anthozoa

Subclass: Scleractinia Common name or Members: stony corals or hard corals

Periods of Existence: Triassic to Recent

Description: Scleractinia appeared after a period of millions of years without any hard corals.

Colonial or sometimes solitary corallites of aragonite.

Septastraea

Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Scyphozoa

Common name or Members: jellyfish

Periods of Existence: Ediacaran to Recent

Description: Soft-bodied free-swimming medusa-stage forms that capture prey with tentacles

covered with cnidocysts (stinging cells) then digested extra-cellularly with secreted enzymes. Rarely

fossilized, but many from Pennsylvanian deltaic deposits from Mazon Creek, Illinois.


Phylum: Arthropoda

Subphylum: Crustacea

Common Name or members: Shrimp, Lobsters, Crabs, Barnacles

Periods of Existence: Cambrian to Recent

Description: A group united by their characteristic bilateral symmetry and segmented, hard

exoskeleton. Crustaceans which include shrimps, crabs and lobsters are members of a special

group of arthropods called Decapoda. All have 5 pairs of legs with one or more pairs equipped

with a pincer.

. Shrimp

Lobster

Crab


Horseshoe crab

Barnacles (Balanus)

Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Chelicerata

Class: Merostomata

Order: Eurypterida

Common Name or Members: sea scorpions, eurypterids


Habitat: shallow marine, brackish, probably some crawled a bit on to land

Description: Extinct group of arthropods related to arachnids that grew to be the largest known arthropods (8

ft in length). The name means ‘wide’ (eury-) ‘wing’ (pteron) in Greek referring to their swimming paddles.

This first really big predator dominated shallow seas of the Ordovician.

Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta


Common Name or Members: insects

Periods of Existence: Devonian to Recent

Description: Most successful clade in the history of animals. Insecta are the primary members

of the Subphyllum Hexapoda (Greek for six legs). Segmented into three-part body (head,

thorax and abdomen) and found in virtually all environments, although primarily terrestrial.

Fossils are rare due to small size and delicate non-mineralized exoskeleton. Many fossils are

from the Eocene Green River Formation (light almost white limestone) of

Utah/Colorado/Wyoming.


Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Trilobita

Common Name or Members: trilobites

Periods of Existence: Lower Cambrian through Permian

Description: Trilobites are named for the three longitudinal lobes of their bodies. A raised

middle lobe begins at the head and runs down into the tail, and a flatter lobe is present at each

side of the middle one. The trilobite body is also divided into three sections: the head, the

thorax and the tail. Since it was not calcified, the underside of the trilobite skeleton was never

preserved. Many trilobite fossils are internal molds of the dorsal skeleton.

Elrathia

Cryptolithus

Isotelus


Phacops

Calymene


Phylum: Brachiopoda

Common Name or Members: brachiopods

Habitat: All are marine


Description: All brachiopods have a shell with two valves. Each valve is a mirror image of the

other. When the valves of a brachiopod are closed, its form is often egg-shaped or flat. The

ventral valve is usually larger than the dorsal valve and extends farther beyond the hinge. An

“articulate” brachiopod is one with a moveable connection between its valves. An “inarticulate”

brachiopod relies upon muscles to hold its valves together.

Class: Inarticulata (no hinges or teeth/sockets)

Lingula

Class: Articulata (hinges with teeth/sockets)

Atrypa

Mucrospirifer


Platystrophia

Rafinesquina

Leptaena

Composita

Juresania


Rhynchonellida


Phylum: Mollusca

Phylum: Mollusca Class: Bivalvia

Common Name or members: clams cockles, mussels, oysters and scallops

Habitat: Most are marine, but some in lakes and streams.


Description: Almost all bivalves have shells composed of two parts called valves. The dorsal

side of the animal is at the hinge line, and the ventral side is down. Each valve is typically a

mirror image of the other. The shell is typically thick and solid, and is composed either of

aragonite (most) or calcite (oysters).

Exogyra

Gryphaea


Pecten

Pholadomya


Phylum: Mollusca Class: Cephalopoda

Common Name of members: squids, cuttlefish, octopods, and nautilus

Periods of Existence: Upper Cambrian to Recent

Description: The first fossil cephalopods had straight shells.

Subclass: Ammonoidea

Common Name of members: Ammonites based on their resemblance to coiled rams'

horns. Pliny the Elder (d. 79 AD near Pompeii) called fossils of these animals ammonis

cornua ("horns of Ammon") because the Egyptian god Ammon was depicted wearing ram's

horns.[1]

Often the name of an ammonite genus ends in -ceras, which is Greekfor "horn".

Periods of Existence: Devonian to Cretaceous (EXTINCT)

Description: Highly mobile predator that dominated the Mesozoic and serves as one of the most

common index fossils. Controlled their buoyancy in water using a siphuncle with chambered,

planispiral coiled shells. Shells are always coiled at least in part – if only the oldest, original section, as

in Baculites (a heteromorphic ammonite). Siphuncle is ON OUTSIDE EDGE of chambers. Suture

lines are always wavy, zigzag or very complex. Shells are frequently ornamented with ribs.

Goniatite

Ceratite

Ammonite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_(sheep)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonoidea#cite_note-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language


Dactylioceras

Baculites

Subclass: Nautiloidea

Common Name or members: nautiloids

Periods of Existence: Upper Cambrian to Recent

Description: Dominant predators of the early Paleozoic, especially the Ordovician. Controlled

their buoyancy in water using a siphuncle with chambered shells (usually straight but most

recent genus Nautilus is coiled). Siphuncle is CENTRAL to shell chambers. Straight or virtually

straight sutures and smooth shells with NO ribs.

Orthoceras


Nautilus Subclass: Coleoidea

Order: Belemnitida

Common Name or members: belemnites

Periods of Existence: Jurassic and Cretaceous

Description: Extinct, squid-like nektonic predators of the Mesozoic. Belemnites had an

internal shell composed of three parts. One retained the chambered buoyancy control of their

ancestors, the other part was called a ‘rostrum’: a solid, single crystal of calcite shaped like a

bullet or fat pencil.

Belemnite

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