Bolboporites

Bolboporites Temporal range: Ordovician
Bolboporites top view (Middle Ordovician, Russia)
Bolboporites side view (Middle Ordovician, Russia)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Echinodermata
Subphylum:	Blastozoa
Class:	Eocrinoidea
Genus:	Bolboporites

Bolboporites is an extinct genus of conical echinoderm that lived in the Ordovician of Europe and North America. They are interpreted to have lived on the seafloor with the pointed end of the cone down in the sediment and the broad end upwards. A single brachiole extended from a hole in this top surface and bent into the current like the arms of crinoids (Rozhnov and Kushlina, 1994). It is likely an eocrinoid which diversified in the Baltic region and then migrated to North America (Rozhnov, 2009).

References

Rozhnov, S.V. 2009. Eocrinoids and paracrinoids of the Baltic Ordovician basin: a biogeographical report. IGCP Meeting, Ordovician palaeogeography and palaeoclimate, Copenhagen, p. 16.

Rozhnov, S.V. and Kushlina, V.B. 1994. Interpretation of new data on Bolboporites Pander, 1830 (Echinodermata; Ordovician), p. 179-180, in David, B., Guille, A., Féral, J.-P. & Roux, M. (eds.), Echinoderms through time (Balkema, Rotterdam).