Wewokella solida

Taxonomy

Sponge

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Porifera
Class: Calcarea
Order: Heteractinida
Family: Wewokellidae
Genus: Wewokella
Species: Wewokella solida
Author Citation Girty 1911

Geological Time Scale

Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Paleozoic
Period: Carboniferous
Sub Period: Pennsylvanian
Epoch: Middle
International Age: Moscovian

Stratigraphy

Test group
Naco Formation

Provenance

Collector: Me
Date Collected: 08/25/2020
Acquired by: Field Collection

Dimensions

Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 145 mm

Location

Roberts Mesa
Gila County
Arizona
United States

• arizona
• desmoinian
• gila county
• moscovian
• naco formation
• pennsylvanian
• porifera
• sponge
• wewokella solida

Comments

This is the largest Wewokella solida that I have found from the Pennsylvanian Naco Formation in Arizona.

 

It is a thick-walled, sub-cylindrical, hollow sponge with simple mostly 4 to 2 pointed spicules. It is differentiated from the related Regispongia genus that has spicules with many more points, polyactine. 

Sponge is found from the Middle Pennsylvanian to the Early Permian in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, Ohio and maybe New Mexico. 

Description from Girty:

 

“WEWOKELLA SOLIDA Girty.
Plate I, figures 12-13b.

1911. Wewokella solida. Girty, New York Acad. Sci. Annals, vol. 21, p. 121.

 

Wewoka formation: Coalgate quadrangle, Okla.
Sponge body irregularly cylindrical, attaining a diameter of at least 25 millimeters. The center is occupied by a large tubular cloaca, the walls being about 7 millimeters thick and showing no evidence of being pierced by radial canals. A dermal layer, if originally present, has been lost. The walls are now made up of large spicules, which are doubtless typically 4-rayed, with one of the rays more or less reduced. Some of the others are perhaps aborted, so that many of the spicules seem to be irregularly branched. They are so interwoven as to make up a wall having considerable rigidity to augment which they may be partly cemented, although it is doubtful if they anastomose. The structure, then, though extremely varied in detail, makes on the whole a homogeneous wall which is apparently the same on the inside as on the outside. Among the large spicules are other much smaller tetraxons.

Horizon and locality. Wewoka formation: Coalgate quadrangle, Okla. (station 2004).”
 

 

Girty, G. H. 1911. On some new genera and species of Pennsylvanian fossils from the Wewoka Formation of Oklahoma. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 21:119-156. Link

 

Redescription of Wewokella and creation of new related genus with polyactine spicules:

Rigby, J. (1978). Two Wewokellid Calcareous Sponges in North America. Journal of Paleontology, 52(3), 705-716. 
 

Most recent paper describing Wewokella with good pictures:

Rigby, J. K. and Mapes, R. H. 2000. Some Pennsylvanian and Permian sponges from southwestern Oklahoma and north-central Texas. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, v. 45, p. 25–67, 6 pls., 6 figs. Link

 

They are found in Texas:

 

Rigby, J. & McKinzie, Mark & Britt, Brooks. (2008). Pennsylvanian Sponges from the Graford Formation, Wise County, Texas. Journal of Paleontology - J PALEONTOL. 82. 492-510. 10.1666/07-060.1. PALEONTOL. 82. 492-510. 10.1666/07-060.1. 

 

Girty, G. H., 1915. Fauna of the Wewoka Formation of Oklahoma: U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 544:1-353.