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Description: | Specimen of two fossil bryozoa (sea mat or moss animal), Retepora cellulosa, and Retepora simplex (Johnston), collected from the Coralline Crag of Tertiary, Pliocene age from Aldborough, Suffolk (SE England).
The skeleton of this bryozoan colony is made up of many hexagonal (six-sided) calcareous (made of calcium carbonate) tubes that are joined together and arranged in folded sheets. The tubes were built by the thousands of microscopic animals called zooids that lived in the colony. 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 abundant.
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 Bryozoa | 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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