BIOL360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Scleractinia, Rugosa, Ordovician
26 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
Paleozoic era: 540-250mya; time of great change, cambrian permian, explosion of sea life (cid:498)age of sea life(cid:499) Started with the breakup of one supercontinent and the formation of another: extensive reef building and reef ecosystems, first vertebrates and vascular plants, life invades land; huge primitive forests. Starts with an explosion and ends in mass extinction (permian period; the biggest extinction of. Sponges: composed of a jelly-like substance known as spongin, have siliceous or calcareous skeletons called spicules, contain various types of cells, such as amoeboid cell that can change function. Stromatoporoids: calcareous marine invertebrates, appear to have siliceous spicules and calcareous bodies, found in marine, shallow-water, often turbulent conditions. Important reef formers; habitat for bivalves, brachiopods, etc. Archaeocyatha: called ancient cups, has a filtering structure, extinct by the end of cambrian, calcium carbonate environment, which is why they fossilize, formed reefs.
