Description

Anatifopsis minuta Chauvel 1941
Ordovician (Llandeilian)
Col de Tanekfoult, North of Zagora, Morocco

Rare 14mm carpoid with feeding arm on 78mm slab.

Anatifopsis is a genus of carpoid known from the Ordovician of north Africa and Europe.

Carpoids appeared during the Cambrian and may have survived into the Carboniferous. Scientists have been fascinated by the group once considered stem-group echinoderms and then allied with other groups because they lacked the radial symmetry of echinoderms. In fact, they lack any symmetry and can be variable in form. However, they are classified as echinoderms because their skeletons have the same calcite-composed, crystalline structure.

This specimen comes from a time relatively early in their history.

What is a carpoid? This article explains them (PDF)