Capsospongia

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.

Capsospongia
Temporal range: Middle Cambrian, Burgess shale
↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Porifera
Class: Demospongiae
Family: †Anthaspidellidae
Genus: †Capsospongia
Rigby 1986
Species:
†C. undulata
Binomial name
†Capsospongia undulata
Walcott 1920

Like most sponges, Capsospoingia had a spicular skeleton; long spicules parallel to the growth direction formed columns which were connected by shorter lateral spicules.

History

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]

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  • "Capsospongia undulata". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Virtual Museum of Canada. 2011.

References
  1. Briggs, D.E.G.; Erwin, D.H.; Collier, F.J. (1995), Fossils of the Burgess Shale, Washington: Smithsonian Inst Press, ISBN 1-56098-659-X, OCLC 231793738
  2. Walcott, Charles D. (1920). "Middle Cambrian Spongiae". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 67 (6).
  3. de Laubenfels, M. W. (1955). "Porifera". In Moore, Raymond C. (ed.). Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology Part E: Archaeocyatha and Porifera.
  4. Conway Morris, S. (1978). "Laggania cambria Walcott: A Composite Fossil". Journal of Paleontology. 52 (1): 126–131. JSTOR 1303799.
  5. "Capsospongia undulata". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Royal Ontario Museum. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  6. Walcott, Charles D. (1911-04-08). "Middle Cambrian holothurians and medusae". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 57 (3).
  7. Collins, Desmond (1996). "The "Evolution" of Anomalocaris and Its Classification in the Arthropod Class Dinocarida (nov.) and Order Radiodonta (nov.)". Journal of Paleontology. 70 (2): 280–293. JSTOR 1306391.
  8. Daley, Allison C.; Bergström, Jan (2012). "The oral cone of Anomalocaris is not a classic peytoia". Naturwissenschaften. 99 (6): 501–504. doi:10.1007/s00114-012-0910-8.


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