Capsospongia Temporal range: Middle Cambrian,
| |
---|---|
Artist's restoration | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Porifera |
Class: | Demospongiae |
Family: | † Anthaspidellidae |
Genus: | †
Capsospongia Rigby 1986 |
Species: | †C. undulata
|
Binomial name | |
†Capsospongia undulata Walcott 1920
|
Capsospongia, formerly known as Corralia or Corralio, is a middle Cambrian sponge genus known from 3 specimens in the Burgess shale. [1] Its type and only species is Capsospongia undulata. It has a narrow base, and consists of bulging rings which get wider further up the sponge, resulting in a conical shape. Its open top was presumably used to expel water that had passed through the sponge cells and been filtered for nutrients.
Like most sponges, Capsospoingia had a spicular skeleton; long spicules parallel to the growth direction formed columns which were connected by shorter lateral spicules.
Capsospongia undulata was named in 1920 by Charles Walcott as Corralia undulata. [2] However, the name was preoccupied by Corralia Roewer, 1913, a member of Opiliones. In 1955, de Laubenfels renamed the genus Corralio, adopting an incorrect spelling of Corralia Walcott had used. [3] [4] In 1986 Keith Rigby established the new genus Capsospongia for it. [5] In 2004, he and Desmond Collins described a third specimen. [5]
C. undulata intersects with the complicated taxonomic history of the anomalocarids. In 1911, Walcott had named two taxa, Peytoia and Laggania, which he interpreted as a jellyfish and a sea cucumber respectively. [6] In 1978, Simon Conway Morris recognized that the mouthparts of Laggania closely resembled Peytoia, but erroneously concluded that this was because Laggania was a composite fossil of a Peytoia and another organism, which he concluded was a sponge and suggested was probably a specimen of C. undulata. [4] However, it was subsequently determined that Laggania and Peytoia were partial specimens of a larger animal, a radiodont, which now bears the name Peytoia. [7] [8]