Reticulomedusa

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Reticulomedusa
Temporal range: 309–307  Ma
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Reticulomedusa greenei.JPG
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Phylum:
Genus:
Reticulomedusa

Foster, 1979
Species:
R. greenei
Binomial name
Reticulomedusa greenei
Foster, 1979

Reticulomedusa is an extinct genus of prehistoric cnidarian containing a single species, Reticulomedusa greenei. [1] It is known from the Mazon Creek located in Illinois. [2] Although it was once described as jellyfish, it may be pedal or oral disc of Essexella which is reinterpreted as sea anemone. [3]

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Mazon is a village in Mazon Township, Grundy County, Illinois, United States. The name derives from the Potawatomi word for "nettles" (mzan). The population was 1,015 at the 2010 census. The center of population of Illinois is located in Mazon. Illinois' State Fossil, the unique and bizarre Tully Monster was first found in nearby Mazon Creek. Mazon was formerly served by the Santa Fe railway at the Mazon Depot. It was established in 1876.

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The Mazon Creek fossil beds are a conservation lagerstätte found near Morris, in Grundy County, Illinois. The fossils are preserved in ironstone concretions, formed approximately 309 million years ago in the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. These concretions frequently preserve both hard and soft tissues of animal and plant materials, as well as many soft-bodied organisms that do not normally fossilize. The quality, quantity and diversity of fossils in the area, known since the mid-nineteenth century, make the Mazon Creek lagerstätte important to paleontologists attempting to reconstruct the paleoecology of the sites. The locality was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997.

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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; in the Essex biota of Mazon Creek, it consists of 42% of all fossil finds. Essexella was originally described as a jellyfish, but was recently redescribed as a sea anemone. The scientists on the "anemone" side of the debate made a book as early as 2017, but it was ignored until the same authors made a proper scientific paper in 2023.

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References

  1. "Fossilworks: Reticulomedusa". www.fossilworks.org. Retrieved 2023-01-14.
  2. "Reticulomedusa | Geology Collections". collections-geology.fieldmuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-01-14.
  3. Plotnick, Roy E.; Young, Graham A.; Hagadorn, James W. (2023). Korn, Dieter (ed.). "An abundant sea anemone from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstӓtte, USA". Papers in Palaeontology. 9 (2). doi: 10.1002/spp2.1479 . ISSN   2056-2799.