''Falospongia'' is a genus of

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

made up of radiating fronds, known from the Middle

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

Burgess Shale. Its name is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''fala'' ("scaffold") and ''spongia'' ("sponge"), referring to the open framework of the skeleton. It superficially resembles '' Haplistion'' but is monaxial. 5 specimens of ''Falospongia'' are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise under 0.1% of the community.

References

External links

* Burgess Shale fossils Protomonaxonida Burgess Shale sponges Prehistoric sponge genera Cambrian genus extinctions {{paleo-sponge-stub