Monday, January 27, 2014

Eridophyllum subcaespitosum coral from the Windom shale

As I was cleaning up some material that I'd found at the Penn Dixie site in Blasdell, NY, I noticed the below specimen. It appears to be a pair of Eridophyllum subcaespitosum corals that are showing the budding habit common to this species as a means of asexually reproducing (also called gemmation). The upper portions of the corals are missing but you can see the connection between the individual corallites.


Interesting to note is that the left most corallite budded twice at the same level (only the one bud was preserved in this specimen) and then the second corallite also budded twice (both are broken and not preserved with this specimen) once it reached a vertical state.


This specimen was collected from the Windom shale mbr. (Bayview coral bed most likely) of the Moscow formation which is Devonian (Givetian stage) in age.

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