Pirania

Pirania is an extinct genus of sea sponge known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale and the Ordovician Fezouata formation.[3] It is named after Mount St. Piran, a mountain situated in the Bow River Valley in Banff National Park, Alberta. It was first described in 1920 by Charles Doolittle Walcott.[4] 198 specimens of Pirania are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.38% of the community.[5]

Pirania Temporal range: Burgess Shale–Middle Ordovician PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N [1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Porifera
Class:	Demospongiae
Order:	†Protomonaxonida
Family:	†Piraniidae
Genus:	†Pirania Walcott, 1920
Type species
Pirania muricata Walcott, 1920
Species
Pirania auraenum Botting, 2007[1] Pirania llanfawrensis Botting, 2004[2] Pirania muricata Walcott, 1920

References

1. Botting, J. P. (2007). "'Cambrian' demosponges in the Ordovician of Morocco: insights into the early evolutionary history of sponges". Geobios. 40 (6): 737–748. doi:10.1016/j.geobios.2007.02.006.
2. Botting, J. P. (2004). "An exceptional Caradoc sponge fauna from the Llanfawr Quarries, Central Wales and phylogenetic implications". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 2 (1): 31–63. doi:10.1017/S147720190300110X.
3. Van Roy, P.; Orr, P. J.; Botting, J. P.; Muir, L. A.; Vinther, J.; Lefebvre, B.; Hariri, K. E.; Briggs, D. E. G. (2010). "Ordovician faunas of Burgess Shale type". Nature. 465 (7295): 215–8. Bibcode:2010Natur.465..215V. doi:10.1038/nature09038. PMID 20463737.
4. Walcott, C. D. (1920). "Cambrian geology and paleontology IV:6—Middle Cambrian Spongiae". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 67: 261–364.
5. Caron, Jean-Bernard; Jackson, Donald A. (October 2006). "Taphonomy of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale". PALAIOS. 21 (5): 451–65. doi:10.2110/palo.2003.P05-070R. JSTOR 20173022.

External links

• "Pirania muricata". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Virtual Museum of Canada. 2011.