Vauxia

Vauxia is an extinct genus of demosponge that had a distinctive branching mode of growth. Each branch consisted of a network of strands. Vauxia also had a skeleton of spongin (flexible organic material) common to modern day sponges. Much like Choia and other sponges, Vauxia fed by extracting nutrients from the water.

Vauxia
Temporal range:
Vauxia from the Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Porifera
Class: Demospongiae
Order: Verongiida
Family: Vauxiidae
Genus: Vauxia
Walcott, 1920
Species

Vauxia is named after Mount Vaux, a mountain in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. It was first described in 1920 by Charles Doolittle Walcott.[2]

Vauxia fossils are found in North America, specifically in the United States and Canada.[3]

References

  1. Botting, J. (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. Walcott, C. D. (1920). "Cambrian geology and paleontology IV:6—Middle Cambrian Spongiae". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 67: 261–364.
  3. Paleobiology Database


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