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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:
Orthotheca AH94
Orthotheca CW2006
Orthotheca AH131
Orthotheca AH156
Orthotheca AH411
Orthotheca Ich6184
Orthotheca Ich6181
Orthotheca Ich6404
Orthotheca p1071
Orthotheca p2029
Orthotheca p6006
Orthotheca p6152
Orthotheca p6336
Orthotheca p642
Orthotheca CW900
Orthotheca Ich6185
Orthotheca Ich6182
Orthotheca Ich6183
Orthotheca striata p3760
Orthotheca ultima p2057

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