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:
| |
|---|---|
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| Vauxia from the Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Porifera |
| Class: | Demospongiae |
| Order: | Verongiida |
| Family: | †Vauxiidae |
| Genus: | †Vauxia Walcott, 1920 |
| Species | |
Herpetogaster, an extinct genus of Early Cambrian animals, attached to branches of Vauxia through a flexible, extensible stolon. It is not known whether the attachment was permanent.[2]
Vauxia is named after Mount Vaux, a mountain in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. It was first described in 1920 by Charles Doolittle Walcott.[3]
Vauxia fossils are found in North America, specifically in the United States and Canada.[4]
References
edit- ^ Botting, J. (2007). "'Cambrian' demosponges in the Ordovician of Morocco: Insights into the early evolutionary history of sponges". Geobios. 40 (6): 737–748. Bibcode:2007Geobi..40..737B. doi:10.1016/j.geobios.2007.02.006.
- ^ Canada, Royal Ontario Museum and Parks (2011-06-10). "The Burgess Shale". burgess-shale.rom.on.ca. Archived from the original on 2020-06-16. Retrieved 2018-10-27.
- ^ Walcott, C. D. (1920). "Cambrian geology and paleontology IV:6—Middle Cambrian Spongiae". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 67: 261–364.
- ^ Paleobiology Database
External links
edit
- "Vauxia gracilenta". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Virtual Museum of Canada. 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12.
- Fauna and Flora of the Burgess Shale
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