Specimen image via iDigBio · CC0
Discinidae
Sign in to saveDiscinidae is a family in the brachiopod superfamily Discinoidea. Unlike most brachiopods, which have uniformly calcitic or phosphatic shells, modern-day discinids incorporate tablets of silica into their valves. These are covered with vesicles into which the siliceous tablets are cemented, much like a closely packed mosaic, and held together with apatite. These vesicles eventually degrade, but nevertheless still leave an imprint on the shell itself. It has been suggested that this siliceous biomineralisation might also have occurred amongst some of the earliest Paleozoic brachiopods because s
Species
盤殻科
FAMILY
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumBrachiopoda
- ClassLingulata
- OrderLingulida
- FamilyDiscinidae
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 46
- With media
- 2
- Family
- Discinidae
- Collections
- NHMUK, YPM, NMMNHS, KU, UCM, FMNH
- Recorded in
- United Kingdom, United States, Chile, Australia, Mexico
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1 sectionsContents
- References
Discinidae is a family in the brachiopod superfamily Discinoidea. Unlike most brachiopods, which have uniformly calcitic or phosphatic shells, modern-day discinids incorporate tablets of silica into their valves. These are covered with vesicles into which the siliceous tablets are cemented, much like a closely packed mosaic, and held together with apatite. These vesicles eventually degrade, but nevertheless still leave an imprint on the shell itself. It has been suggested that this siliceous biomineralisation might also have occurred amongst some of the earliest Paleozoic brachiopods because similar patterns of shell imprints have been observed amongst them too.
==References==
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Discinidae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.