5.15" Mississippian Conulariid (Conularia) Fossil - New York

Conulariids are a poorly understood clade of extinct scyphozoan cnidarians. They are preserved in the fossil record as shell-like structures made up of rows of calcium phosphate rods. New rods were added as the organism grew in length; the rod-based growth falsely gives the fossils a segmented appearance. Exceptional soft-part preservation has revealed that soft tentacles protruded from the wider end of the cone, and a holdfast from the pointed end attached the organisms to hard substrate. The prevailing reconstruction of the organism has it look superficially like a sea anemone sitting inside a hard, angular cone held perpendicular to the substrate.