|
Date: |
|
Description: | Specimen of a fossil graptolite, Dicranograptus clingani, collected from the Loweswater Formation, Skiddaw Group of Early Ordovician, Arenig, Moridunian age from Barf, Bassenthwaite, Cumbria (NW England). Collected by Emma Smith.
Graptolites were a group of marine colonial animals that belong to the group Hemichordata (chordates without a backbone). Most of them floated freely about in the ocean, but some lived attached to the bottom. They lived from the Cambrian to the mid-Carboniferous. As fossils, most of the graptolites look like branches of saw blades, with a length from 10 millimetres up to one metre long. They are usually white or silvery against the dark shale. Each 'saw tooth' was a small tube and housed a small animal. The soft parts of the graptolites have never been found, but we assume that the animal fed by extending a wreath of tentacles to capture food particles.
The specimen was found in Cumbria.
It is from the Ordovician period (495 - 443 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Graptolithina Classification: Animalia Smith Chordata Hemichordata Emma | Temporal: | Ordovician period (495 - 443 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
|
|