Zagora, Beni Zoli (Ordovician to of Morocco)

Where: Morocco (30.5° N, 5.9° W: paleocoordinates 77.3° S, 103.8° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Upper Member (Fezouata Formation), Floian to Floian (477.7 - 467.3 Ma)

• "Lower-Middle Arenig"

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; lithified, green siltstone and lithified limestone

• green siltstone and thin limestone beds

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression

Primary reference: J. P. Botting. 2007. "Cambrian" demosponges in the Ordovician of Morocco: Insights into the early evolutionary history of sponges. Geobios 40:737-748 [W. Kiessling/U. Merkel]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 120549: authorized by Wolfgang Kiessling, entered by Uta Merkel on 16.11.2011

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• The sponges are associated with diverse shelly and graptolitic faunas, of which the most common elements are trilobites, graptolites, hyolithids, echinoderms and brachiopods.
Demospongiae
 Protomonaxonida - Choiidae
Choia sp. Walcott 1920 demosponge
 Protomonaxonida - Piraniidae
Pirania auraeum n. sp. Botting 2007 demosponge
 Protomonaxonida - Hamptoniidae
Hamptonia christi n. sp. Botting 2007 demosponge
Hexactinellida
 Reticulosa - Asthenospongiidae
? Asthenospongiidae indet. Botting 2004 glass sponge