Sunday, August 21, 2011

Escumasia.

Escumsia is a unusual genus of animal that is only found in Pit 11 in the Mazon Creek formation. It lived in the Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous Period.

Escumasia had a stalk with a circular holdfast at the bottom, a sack-like body, two long arms, and a slit-like mouth on top. It also had an opening on the body which could have been an anus.

Escumasia was usually about 4.5 inches tall. Its arms may have been for stinging food then sweeping it into the mouth. But nobody knows for sure.

[Image removed by request of the photographer]

The affinity of Escumasia is highly disputed. It could possibly be related to cnadarians (nuh-dare-EE-inz), which include jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals. But Escumasia had bilateral symmetry, which means that it could not have been a true cnadarian. Some scientists believe that it could have been in its own separate group. Possibly it died out because it was not well enough adapted to its surroundings. It was probably not a very successful form, because Escumasia is the only known animal of its kind. I've been able to find almost nothing about Escumasia, which means it could be very mysterious.

[Image removed by request of the photographer]


[Primary sources for this post: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wstoddar/escumasia.html and http://www.jstor.org/pss/1303070]

3 comments:

  1. Fascinating! I had never heard of this one.

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  2. I think it's really cool too. And it's not surprising that you've never heard of it before, because most people have not heard of it. I was only able to find two sources and there is still very little information on the internet about Escumasia.

    There are many very amazing creatures I would like to write about, but there is not enough information on them. I wish I could solve that problem by being a paleobiologist and finding information about the rare animals, especially the stalked sea cucumber Herpetogaster, and other Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian animals.

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  3. Dear Super Fossil kid & family This beast was named after Dr.E.S.Richardson jr.. This was his pen name!!!
    the "i"was added to the sp.name to mean it was named after a male. Note "ae" at end of a sp. means named after a female. ESR once told me that when I was a kid. cool ya
    Art get "A New true book,Fossils"by Alian Roberts 1983 YOU need this for your Mazon Creek Area Library Coll.get two!!! Have your Mom email me for snail mail info I'll you unpublished stuff about this "thing"

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