Cryptostomata

Cryptostomata

[‚krip·tə′stō·məd·ə]

(paleontology)

An order of extinct bryozoans in the class Gymnolaemata.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Cryptostomata

 

an order of fossil Bryozoa. The colonies of Cryptostomata are small (up to 15 cm), predominantly reticular; more rarely, they are branching or lamellar. The calcareous skeleton is permeated by a system of capillaries. There are three suborders, comprising ten families (approximately 150 genera). Widely distributed from the Ordovician to the beginning of the Triassic, they lived in seas and participated in the formation of reefs. They have great stratigraphic significance.

REFERENCES

Osnovy paleontologii: Mshanki, brakhiopody. Moscow, 1960.
Astrova, G. G. Morfologiia, istoriia razvitiia i sistema ordovikskikh i siluriiskikh mshanok. Moscow, 1965.
Morozova, I. P. Mshanki pozdnei permi. Moscow, 1970.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.