"Octobasis" flexuosa (Malecki 1982)

11mm. This is the first in a series of 4 pictures of the roots or holdfasts of several colony-building corals belonging to the subclass of the Octocorallia. They were found in the upper cretaceous Campanian layers at Hoever and Misburg, two quarries in the viscinity of Hannover, Germany. Normally only isolated sclerites of calcified forms can be found, which is why an identification of genus and species is difficult. All the "bases" found here belong to the order Gorgonacea, the horn corals, and they attached themselves mainly to sea urchins, belemnites or sponges. One can observe the raised point at the center of the roots which was the point of attachment to the colony with its tree-like skeleton. Unfortunately these parts have almost always gone lost, which is why one doesn't know much at all about the complete creatures. Malecki (1982), who studied Octocoral bases in Poland, created a Para-taxonomy for them and Koenig (1991) took this over for the Hannoveranian fauna, since Malecki's material was quite similar to that which is found here.