Vauxia
Extinct genus of sponges
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vauxia is an extinct genus of demosponge that had a distinctive branching mode of growth. Each branch consisted of a network of strands. Vauxia also had a skeleton of spongin (flexible organic material) common to modern day sponges. Much like Choia and other sponges, Vauxia fed by extracting nutrients from the water.
| Vauxia Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| |
| Vauxia from the Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Porifera |
| Class: | Demospongiae |
| Order: | Verongiida |
| Family: | †Vauxiidae |
| Genus: | †Vauxia Walcott, 1920 |
| Species | |
Herpetogaster, an extinct genus of Early Cambrian animals, attached to branches of Vauxia through a flexible, extensible stolon. It is not known whether the attachment was permanent.[2]
Vauxia is named after Mount Vaux, a mountain in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. It was first described in 1920 by Charles Doolittle Walcott.[3]
Vauxia fossils are found in North America, specifically in the United States and Canada.[4]
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