Global InformationNamapoikia information
| Namapoikia Temporal range: (Terminal Ediacaran)
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Porifera (?) |
| Genus: | †Namapoikia Wood et al. 2002 |
| Species: | †N. rietoogensis
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| Binomial name | |
| †Namapoikia rietoogensis Wood et al. 2002
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Namapoikia rietoogensis is among the earliest known animals to produce a calcareous (probably aragonite[1]) skeleton.[2] Known from the Ediacaran period, before the Cambrian explosion of calcifying animals, the long-lived organism grew up to a metre in diameter and resembles a colonial sponge.[3][4] It was an encruster, filling vertical fissures in the reefs in which it originally grew.[5]
The fossil was first found in the Omkyk Member of the Nama Group from Rietoog in southern Namibia, in association with other calcifying fossils, Cloudina and Namacalathus.
Its mineralogy and accretionary style has been compared with that of the Lophotrochozoans,[6] though its unfamiliar morphology suggests a stem-group or deeper affiliation to this group.[7]
It grew in spurts, first emplacing an organic skeleton, then filling this in with aragonite.[3]
- ^ Zhuravlev, A.Y., Wood, R.A., and Penny, A.M. (2015). Ediacaran skeletal metazoan interpreted as a lophophorate. Proc. R. Soc. B 282, 20151860. Available at: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.1860.
- ^ 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. S2CID 27418253.
- ^ a b Wood, Rachel; Penny, Amelia (2018). "Substrate growth dynamics and biomineralization of an Ediacaran encrusting poriferan". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 285 (1870): 20171938. doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1938. PMC 5784191. PMID 29321296.
- ^ Wood, Rachel A.; John P. Grotzinger; J. A. D. Dickson (28 June 2002). "Proterozoic Modular Biomineralized Metazoan from the Nama Group, Namibia". Science. 296 (5577): 2383–2386. Bibcode:2002Sci...296.2383W. doi:10.1126/science.1071599. PMID 12089440. S2CID 9515357.
- ^ 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<0334:CMITSR>2.0.CO;2. S2CID 52231115.
- ^ Zhuravlev, A. Y.; Wood, R. A.; Penny, A. M. (2015). "Ediacaran skeletal metazoan interpreted as a lophophorate". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 282 (1818): 20151860. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1860. PMC 4650157. PMID 26538593.
- ^ Zhuravlev, A. Yu.; Liñán, E. L.; Vintaned, J. A. Gámez; Debrenne, F.; Fedorov, A. B. (2012). "New finds of skeletal fossils in the terminal Neoproterozoic of the Siberian Platform and Spain". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 57: 205–224. doi:10.4202/app.2010.0074.