Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.
The Rugosa, also called the Tetracorallia, rugose corals, or horn corals, are an extinct order of solitary and colonial corals that were abundant in Middle Ordovician to Late Permian seas.
Tabulata, commonly known as tabulate corals, are an order of extinct forms of coral. They are almost always colonial, forming colonies of individual hexagonal cells known as corallites defined by a skeleton of calcite, similar in appearance to a honeycomb. Adjacent cells are joined by small pores. Their distinguishing feature is their well-developed horizontal internal partitions (tabulae) within each cell, but reduced or absent vertical internal partitions. They are usually smaller than rugose corals, but vary considerably in shape, from flat to conical to spherical.
Professor Henri-François-Émile Termier was a French geologist.
Geneviève Termier was a French paleontologist and evolutionist. She was a research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. In 1942 she went to Morocco where she met her husband Henri. Their son Michel was born three years later. She specialized in the study of gastropods. She also studied the South-East Asian Permian brachiopods. Together with her husband Henri Termier, she is considered one of the greatest French paleontologist of the 20th century. Geneviève Termier suffered from a long and painful illness, and on 27 May 2005 in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, near Paris, she died at 88 years of age.
Acrotretides (Acrotretida) are an extinct order of linguliform brachiopods in the class Lingulata. Acrotretida contains 8 families within the sole superfamily Acrotretoidea. They lived from the Lower Cambrian to the Middle Devonian, rapidly diversifying during the middle Cambrian. In the upper Cambrian, linguliforms reached the apex of their diversity: acrotretides and their relatives the lingulides together comprised nearly 70% of brachiopod genera at this time. Though acrotretides continued to diversify during the Ordovician, their proportional dominance declined, as rhynchonelliforms took on a larger role in brachiopod faunas.
Favosites is an extinct genus of tabulate coral characterized by polygonal closely packed corallites. The walls between corallites are pierced by pores known as mural pores which allowed transfer of nutrients between polyps. Favosites, like many corals, thrived in warm sunlit seas, feeding by filtering microscopic plankton with their stinging tentacles and often forming part of reef complexes. The genus had a worldwide distribution from the Late Ordovician to Late Permian.
Halysites is an extinct genus of tabulate coral. Colonies range from less than one to tens of centimeters in diameter, and they fed upon plankton.
Aulopora is an extinct genus of tabulate coral characterized by a bifurcated budding pattern and conical corallites. Colonies commonly encrust hard substrates such as rocks, shells and carbonate hardgrounds.
Pleurodictyum is an extinct genus of tabulate corals, characterized by polygonal corallites. Colonies commonly encrust hard substrates such as rocks, shells and carbonate hardgrounds.
Syringopora is an extinct genus of phaceloid tabulate coral. It has been found in rocks ranging in age from the Ordovician to the Permian, although it was most widespread during the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous periods. Among other places, it has been found in the Columbus Limestone in Ohio, and in the Spring Branch Member of the Lecompton Limestone in Kansas.
Cladochonus is an extinct genus of tabulate coral.
Amplexopora is a genus of bryozoans of the family Amplexoporidae, known in the rock record from the Ordovician to the Permian periods. Species belonging to this genus were stationary epifaunal suspension feeders. Their colonies showed a very great variety in shapes.
Halysitidae is an extinct family of tabulate corals.
Prostacheoceras is genus of ammonoid cephalopods belonging to the Vidrioceratidae family. Species belonging to this genus lived in early to middle Permian.
Catenipora is an extinct genus of tabulate corals in the family Halysitidae, known from the Ordovician to the Silurian.
†Zygopleura is an extinct genus of fossil sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Zygopleuridae.
Algospongia is a class of small, calcified fossil organisms of uncertain taxonomic position, assigned in a comprehensive 2010 review to "Animalia" incertae sedis, but both prior to and post that to an unnamed phylum of Algae; other workers simply list them as Problematica. They occur in carbonate rocks of the Paleozoic era and their last representatives occur in the Late Permian geological period. Characteristic genera include Aoujgalia, Moravammina and the early-appearing Wetheredella, although the taxonomic validity of the last named genus has been disputed.
Crurithyris is an extinct genus of brachiopod belonging to the order Spiriferida and family Ambocoeliidae.
Heliolites is a large and heterogenous genus of extinct tabulate corals in the family Heliolitidae. Specimens have been found in Ordovician to Devonian beds in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The genus is particularly abundant in the Wellin Member of the Hanonet Formation of Belgium.
