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By oilshale
Brittle Star
Kingdom: Animalia
Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Paleozoic
Period: Devonian
Sub Period: None
Epoch: Early
International Age: Emsian (early)
Hunsrück Slate Group
Kaup Formation
Herrenberg Member
Collector: T. Bastelberger
Acquired by: Field Collection
Diameter: 20 cm
Heap pile "Grube Herrenberg"
Bundenbach
Rhineland-Palatinate
Germany
Taxonomy from Fossilworks.org.
Description from Südkamp 2017, p. 139: " Furcaster is a very abundant ophiuroid with opposing fused ambulacrals. These vertebrae are elongate and wing-like. The five narrow arms are high and taper to whip-like extremities. Each ambulacral pair has a pronounced median dorsal oval cleft. The ambulacral plates are essentially flat and plastron-like orally (plastron is the lower shell of a turtle). The round small disc is granulated. The mouth frame is petaloid and the mouth-angle plates are sub-triangular in outline. The ambulacral groove is open. The laterals are blocky to barette-shaped. They bear a tuft of vertical needle-like spines, and leaf-like groove spines."
Lehmann (1957) listed three species: Furcaster palaeozoicus, F. decheni and F. zitteli. F. decheni is the largest and more robust than F. palaeozoicus. The disc incorporates about seven arm segments.
Identified by oilshale.
References:
Stürtz, B. (1886) Beitrag zur Kenntnis paläozoische Seesterne. Palaeontographica 32:75-98.
Lehmann, W.M. (1957) Die Asterozoen in den Dachschifern des rheinischen Unterdevons. Abhandlungen des Hessischen Landeshamtes für Bodenforchung 21:1-160.
Südkamp, W. (2017): Life in the Devonian. Identification book Hunsrück Slate fossils. Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil. München 2017. ISBN978-3-89937-221-2.
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