A quick post from something on the hard drive…
Often, when inspecting corals(Cnindaria) or sponges(Porifera) that I have found in the Millersburg mb. of the Lexington, I find micro-fossils at the base of the colonies. It could be coincidental, but I’m starting to think that the micros were juveniles and that their progenitor placed the off spring in a habitat that favored survival, or the ones placed there were more likely to survive… which seems more plausible.
Anyway, here is a small bivalve that was collected from just such an environment.
A little closer
Since the common bivalves from the Millersburg are modiomorphids or ambonychiids, These are probably ambonychiids… probably Bysonnychia sp. juveniles.
Tags: ambonychia, bivalve, Fossil, kentucky, ordovician
Iapetus Adventures 
January 6, 2011 at 12:12 pm |
If you find them at the base of the colonies, could that mean that the coral or bryozoan colony used the juvenile as a starting base and eventually smothered it?
January 6, 2011 at 5:45 pm |
Unlikely, usually the micro-critters are found in open spaces on the colony. It could just be an error in my sampling- I tend to scrutinize a coral or sponge more closely than the matrix in which it was found, and the little buggers can’t be seen without magnification.
Though, I think that I would have come across more of them in the matrix sometime though out years, if that were the situation.
Too, I am unsure if these are juvenile bivalves and gastropods, or adult micros, but since the morphology is similar to some adult forms, e,g; loxonematids, platyceratids(snails), and ambonychiids(bivalves), they appear to be juvies.