Essexella

Essexella Temporal range: Late Carboniferous [1] PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Essexella asherae fossil on display at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Cnidaria
Genus:	† Essexella Foster, 1979
Species:	†E. asherae
Binomial name
†Essexella asherae Foster, 1979

Essexella is an extinct genus of cnidarian known from Late Carboniferous fossils; it contains a single species, E. asherae. It is one of the most recurrent organisms in the Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois; ^[1] in the Essex biota of Mazon Creek, it consists of 42% of all fossil finds. ^[2] Essexella was originally described as a jellyfish, ^[3] but was recently redescribed as a sea anemone. ^[4]

Another alleged jellyfish, Reticulomedusa , is likely Essexella preserved from different angles. Essexella may have produced the common trace fossil Conostichus . ^[5]

See also

• Octomedusa

References

1. Palmer, Douglas; Brasier, Martin; Burnie, David; Cleal, Chris; Crane, Peter; Thomas, Barry A.; Buttler, Caroline; Cope, John C. W.; Owens, Robert M. (2009). "Carboniferous". In Ambrose, Jamie; Gilpin, Daniel; Hirani, Salima; Jackson, Tom; Joyce, Nathan; Maiklem, Lara; Marriott, Emma; Nottage, Claire; van Zyl, Miezan (eds.). Prehistoric Life: the Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth (first American ed.). New York City: DK Publishing. p. 62. ISBN   978-0-7566-5573-0.
2. Selden, Paul; Nudds, John (2012). "Mazon Creek". Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems (second ed.). Manson Publishing Ltd. pp. 94–96. ISBN   978-1-84076-623-3.
3. Foster, Merrill W. (1979-01-01), Nitecki, Matthew H. (ed.), "Soft-Bodied Coelenterates in the Pennsylvanian of Illinois" , Mazon Creek Fossils, Academic Press, pp. 191–267, doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-519650-5.50016-3, ISBN   978-0-12-519650-5 , retrieved 2023-03-10
4. Plotnick, Roy E.; Young, Graham A.; Hagadorn, James W. (8 March 2023). Korn, Dieter (ed.). "An abundant sea anemone from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstӓtte, USA". Papers in Palaeontology. 9 (2). Bibcode:2023PPal....9E1479P. doi: 10.1002/spp2.1479 . ISSN   2056-2799. S2CID   257447889.
5. Plotnick, Roy E.; Young, Graham A.; Hagadorn, James W. (8 March 2023). Korn, Dieter (ed.). "An abundant sea anemone from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstӓtte, USA". Papers in Palaeontology. 9 (2). Bibcode:2023PPal....9E1479P. doi: 10.1002/spp2.1479 . ISSN   2056-2799. S2CID   257447889.