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Description: | Specimen of a fossil bryozoan (sea mat or moss animal), Theona globosa, collected from the Coralline Crag of Tertiary, Pliocene age from Orford, Suffolk (SE England). Collected by William K. Loftus.
The skeleton of this bryozoan colony, as its name suggests, is globe shaped. It consists of a lot of calcareous (made of calcium carbonate) tubes that were made by the thousands of microscopic animals called zooids that lived in them. The zooids fed on tiny microscopic plants known as phytoplankton that they trapped in their tentacles. Like most bryozoans this colony lived in shallow water at depths between 20 and 80m where their phytoplankton food was most commonly found.
The specimen was found in Suffolk.
It is from the Tertiary period (65 - 1.8 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Classification: Animalia Invertebrata Bivalvia Mollusca William K. Loftus | Temporal: | Tertiary period (65 - 1.8 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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