''Prasopora'' is an extinct genus of

bryozoa Bryozoa (also known as the Polyzoa, Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals) are a phylum of simple, aquatic invertebrate animals, nearly all living in sedentary colonies. Typically about long, they have a special feeding structure called a ...

n belonging to the family

Monticuliporidae Monticuliporidae is a family of bryozoans belonging to the order Trepostomata, characterized by branching, encrusting, or massive colonies with regularly spaced bumps on their surfaces. It is one of the earliest bryozoan families to arise, known f ...

, known from the Middle Ordovician. Its colonies were disc-shaped or hemispherical, flat on bottom and convex on top, and had very abundant mesopores; in the case of the species ''P. insularis'' its zooecia (individual tubes housing the zooids) were isolated from each other by the numerous mesopores surrounding them. It is very similar to the genus

Monticulipora ''Monticulipora'' is an extinct genus of Ordovician bryozoans belonging to the family Monticuliporidae Monticuliporidae is a family of bryozoans belonging to the order Trepostomata, characterized by branching, encrusting, or massive colonies wit ...

, and some bryozoan species have been assigned to both genera at different points in their study, but it is mostly distinguished by having more mesozooecia, rounder autozooecial apertures, relatively few acanthostyles and diaphragms and cystiphragms equally distributed in the autozooecia. Study of the species ''Prasopora simulatrix'' has provided insight into the speciation rate of bryozoans, revealing that some bryozoans evolved relatively quickly, in contrast to an earlier view of bryozoans as slowly evolving.

Species

*''Prasopora carnica'' (Vinassa de Regny, 1915) *''Prasopora spjeldnaesi'' *''Prasopora fritzae'' (Fritz, 1957) *''Prasopora prismatica'' (Fritz, 1957) *''Prasopora similis'' (Fritz, 1957) *''Prasopora simulatrix'' (Ross, 1967) *''Prasopora fistuliporides'' (Vinassa de Regny, 1910) *''Prasopora thorali'' (Prantl, 1940) *''Prasopora insularis''

References

Trepostomata Prehistoric bryozoan genera {{bryozoan-stub