Lab 5 Colonial Invertebrates
Lab questions: hand in your answers on a seperate piece of paper.
 

Question 1: What differences (size, internal features) can you see between the stromatoporoids, Amphipora (box 1) and Idiostroma (box 2)?

Question 2: Draw Stromatopora and label the vertical pillars, horizontal laminae, latilamellae/latilamina (growth bands), and astrorhizae. What overall shape (encrusting, massive, or branched) does this stromatoporoid have?

Question 3: Draw a transverse section of Cyanthophyllum (looking down from above, perpendicular to the central corallite axis) and label the epitheca, a septum, the calical pit, a dissepiment, and the cardinal fossula.

Question 4: List two characters which distinguish Cyanthophyllum (box 7) and Charactophyllum (box 8).

Question 5: List two morphological differences which you can see between these two colonial rugose corals (from boxes 9 and 10).

Question 6: What type of growth form (arrangement of corallites within a colony) does each species (boxes 4, 5, & 6) have? What other characteristics distinguish these three species?

Question 7: Draw a longitudinal section of Favosites (box 4). Label a corallite, a mural pore (small holes in the corallite wall), the theca (corallite wall), and a tabula.

Question 8: Draw Prasopora (box 11) and label an autopore (use a hand lens). What type of growth form does this bryozoan have?

  • encrusting = attached to substrate
  • frondose = broad, flat branches
  • massive = hemispherical or subglobular
  • ramose = rounded branches
  • retriculate = fan-shaped


    • Question 9: What are the differences between autopores (look at diagrams and box 11) and fenestrules (box 12)? You may need to use a hand lens.

    Question 10: Are the three unknown fossils (14 a, b, and c) stromatoporoids, corals, or bryozoans? Give reasons for your answers.

    Question 11: Visit the University of Newcastle Rugose and Tabulate Coral Web site (it may look familiar from an earlier part of this lab). List the box numbers of the genera in lab 5 that are illustrated at the Newcastle site. For each box number on the list, briefly describe how the Newcastle specimens differ from the corresponding specimens in lab 5.

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