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Hyolitha (Hyoliths)

      Hyolitha are enigmatic animals with small conical shells known from the Palaeozoic Era. The calcareous shells have a cover (operculum) and two curved supports known as helens. Most are one to four centimeters in length and are triangular or elliptical in cross section. Some species have rings or stripes. Because hyoliths are extinct and do not obviously resemble any extant group, it is unclear which living group they are most closely related to. They may be molluscs; authors who suggest that they deserve their own phylum do not comment on the position of this phylum in the tree of life.Fossil traces showing a twisted, looped, intestine bear some resemblance to the gut of sipunculan worms. Despite the fact that hyolithid shells are common as fossils, little is known about their ancestry, internal structures, and life mode. They were probably benthic (bottom-dwellers). The first hyolith fossils appeared about 540 million years ago in the Purella antiqua Zone of the Nemakit-Daldynian Stage of Siberia and in its analogue the Paragloborilus subglobosus–Purella squamulosa Zone of the Meishucunian Stage of China. Hyolith abundance and diversity attain a maximum in the Cambrian, followed by a progressive decline up to their Permian extinction.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyolithid
Hyolitha
Img. 94:
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 FK40
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 FK41
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW227
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW230
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW293
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW294
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW525
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW529
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW213
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 MD137
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW295
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW374
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW247
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW284
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW318
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW319
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW321
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW527
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW286
Hyolitha Marek, 1963 CW314

Virtual museum of the Czech Geological Survey, www.geology.cz, (C) Czech Geological Survey, 2011, v.0.99 [13.12.2011]