Calapoecia

Classification
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Tabulata
Family: Sryingophyllidae
Genus: Calapoecia Billings, 1865
Cincinnatian Species: Calapoecia huronensis

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Geologic Range
Middle Ordovician – Late Ordovician

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

Identification in Hand Sample:

  • Nearly round corallites
  • Vertical tubes in wall of corallites
  • Tabulae present
  • Dissepiments absent
  • Buds arise between corallites

Geographic Occurrences

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Holland (UGA Strat Lab, 2013):

  • Note relatively round corallites, short septal spines, tabulae, and vertical tubes in walls of corallites that give walls a beaded appearance.

Davis (1998):

  • Coral. Differs from the superficially similar Favistina (following figure) in having the walls of each corallite perforated by rows of rather large pores that are lined up in each space between two septa. Entire Richmondian, especially in upper part.

Fossils of Ohio (1996):

  • Calapoeciais a tabulate coral having a massive, spheroidal, hemispheroidal, or encrusting corallum. Corallites are circular or polygonal in cross section; corallite walls are composed of fused septal elements and have pores alternating with the septa. Septa are short and typically 20 in number. Tabulae are present. Dissepiments are absent. Buds arise between the corallites. Representatives of Calapoecia have been reported from Ordovician rocks of the Cincinnati Arch region, including southwestern Ohio. They are most common in the upper part of the Richmondian stage.

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part F, 2 of 2 (1981):

  • Corallum coenenchymate, walls of corallites trabeculate and greatly thickened with pores in regular, intersecting horizontal and vertical rows; septa commonly 20 and each commonly a longitudinal row of adacially discrete spines; coenenchyme may be thin to absent in places and corallites polygonal, or may be wide, with rims of taublaria raised above surface of corallum and septa may be extended into it; tabulae complete or with peripheral tabellae, and horizontal or saucered.

Roy (1942):

  • This genus has been ably revised and redescribed recently by Cox (1936). He regards this coral as a somewhat aberrant Tabulate, “characterized by the presence of a very open stereozone bonding its corallite, and twenty short, wedge-shaped septa rising periodically from the septal ridges, which alone make the corallite ‘wall.'” He further finds that there is but one species belonging to this genus, viz., Calapoecia canadensis Billings, from which arise three varieties, C. canadensis var. ungava (Cox), C. canadensis var. anticostiensis Billings, and C. canadensis var. anticostiensis f. arctica (Troedsson).

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C. huronensis