Coccoserididae

Classification
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Tabulata
Order: Heliolitida
Family: Coccoserididae (Kiaer, 1899)
Cincinnatian Genera: Protarea

Geologic Range
Middle Ordovician – Late Ordovician

Common Paleoecology
Coccoserididae is an extinct family of stationary epifaunal suspension feeders which have been interpreted to have hosted symbiotic algae in their tissues

Description of the Family

  • Corallum encrusting, laminar or subglobular
  • longitudinal skeletal elements greatly thickened and aporose, horizontal skeletal elements thin and sparse to absent
  • coenenchyme of coenenchymal monacanths commonly so thick that no tubular lumina occur
  • tabularia with longitudinally plicate walls and with 12 contiguous septa
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Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part F, 2 of 2 (1981):

  • Corallum encrusting, laminar or subglobular; longitudinal skeletal elements greatly thickened and aporose; horizontal skeletal elements thin and sparse to absent; tabularia with longitudinally plicate walls and with 12 contiguous septa composed of monacanthine ?(or rhabdacanthine) trabeculae directed upward adaxially and so thick and long as to fill the lumen with few exceptions; coenenchyme of coenenchymal monacanths commonly so thick that no tubular lumina occur.

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Protarea