''Pirania'' is an extinct genus of sea sponge 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 and the Ordovician

Fezouata formation The Fezouata Formation or Fezouata Shale is a geological formation in Morocco which dates to the Early Ordovician.

. It is named after Mount St. Piran, a mountain situated in the Bow River Valley in

Banff National Park Banff National Park is Canada's oldest National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous terrain, wi ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. It was first described in 1920 by Charles Doolittle Walcott. 198 specimens of ''Pirania'' are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.38% of the community.

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* Burgess Shale fossils Protomonaxonida Burgess Shale sponges Prehistoric sponge genera Cambrian first appearances Middle Ordovician extinctions Taxa named by Charles Doolittle Walcott Fossil taxa described in 1920 {{paleo-sponge-stub Cambrian genus extinctions