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Stylophora (Stylophorans)

      The stylophorans are an extinct, possibly polyphylletic group allied to the echinoderms, comprising the cornutes and mitrates.It is synonymous with the subphylum Calcichordata. The general stylophoran body plan consists of a flattened theca and a single jointed appendage which extends from it. Stylophoran tests are composed of stereom calcite plates like an echinoderm, which has traditionally been the basis for assigning them to Echinodermata. However, they also lack the radial symmetry characteristic of most other echinoderms, with the earlier members of the group being flattened and asymmetrical, and the later ones closer to bilateral symmetry. In Mitrocystites and perhaps in other forms its stem does not end in an attachment organ, and the stem more likely served the organism as a tail for movement. Cothurnocystis is asymmetrical and boot-shaped, and Mitrocystites is bilaterally symmetrical and more streamlined. It has additionally been suggested that some or all of its members might have had gill slits like a chordate, and that their stems contained a notochord.This reconstruction leads to the alternative hypothesis that some or all of the stylophorans may have been ancestral to the chordate branch of the deuterostomes, rather than being within the echinoderms.

Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylophora
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 MN31
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 PB1061
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 MŠ6039
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 YA868
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 SZ106
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 MN25
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 SZ128
Stylophora Gill et Caster, 1960 SZ97
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021 OZ149
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Pl. 23a OZ150
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig 93.a. OZ194
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021 OZ198
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021 OZ202
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig 97.b. OZ196
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig 98b. OZ197
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig.98.f. OZ191
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021 OZ206
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig.98.c. OZ190
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig 98.d. OZ199
Thoralicarpus prokopi Lefebvre et al., 2021Lefebvre et al. (2021), Fig 98.a. OZ200
stylophora
Img. 85: Morphology of Stylophorans (after Ruta 2003)
Stylophorata
Img. 85:
Virtual museum of the Czech Geological Survey, www.geology.cz, (C) Czech Geological Survey, 2011, v.0.99 [13.12.2011]