Article
Article
Heterocorallia
Article By:
Gudo, Michael Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Germany.
Hill, Dorothy Department of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Last reviewed:January 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.315700
A small, extinct late Paleozoic order of fossil corals known from Europe, North Africa, Asia, North America, and Australia but limited to the Middle Devonian and to the Late Mississippian. They are found in calcareous shales and in limestones. The preserved material, called a corallite, is a calcareous substrate secreted by a scleractinian-like polyp. The corallites attained elongated shapes (Fig. 1a) and show a bifurcational pattern of septal insertion during growth in the diameter. Nevertheless, the known materials show little change in diameter from one end to the other. There are rare indications of branching, which can be interpreted as budding of new polyps in the soft tissues of the original polyp. See also: Devonian; Mississippian
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