Namapoikia

Namapoikia Temporal range: 549 million years ago (Terminal Ediacaran)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	incertæ sedis
Genus:	Namapoikia Wood et al. 2002
Species:	N. rietoogensis Wood et al. 2002

Namapoikia rietoogensis is among the earliest known animals to produce a calcareous (probably aragonite) skeleton.^[1] Known from the Ediacaran period, before the Cambrian explosion of calcifying animals, the organism grew up to a metre in diameter and resembles a colonial sponge or cnidarian.^[2] It was an encruster, filling vertical fissures in the reefs in which it originally grew.^[3]

The fossil was first found in the Omkyk Member from Rietoog in southern Namibia, in association with another calcifying fossil, Cloudina.

See also

• Ediacaran biota: life forms of the time
• Cloudina and Namacalathus, other calcifying Ediacaran fossils.
• List of Ediacaran genera

References

1. ^ Susannah M. Porter (1 June 2007). "Seawater Chemistry and Early Carbonate Biomineralization". Science 316 (5829): 1302. Bibcode 2007Sci...316.1302P. doi:10.1126/science.1137284. PMID 17540895. 
2. ^ Proterozoic Modular Biomineralized Metazoan from the Nama Group, Namibia: Rachel A Wood, John P. Grotzinger, J. A. D. Dickson: Science 28 June 2002: 2383 doi:10.1126/science.1071599 PMID 12089440
3. ^ Grotzinger, J.P.; Watters, W.A.; Knoll, A.H. (2000). "Calcified metazoans in thrombolite-stromatolite reefs of the terminal Proterozoic Nama Group, Namibia". Paleobiology 26 (3): 334–359. doi:10.1666/0094-8373(2000)026.