brachiopod

Based on a genetic analysis, Wufengella is probably the common ancestor that connects brachiopods, bryozoans and phoronid worms, paleontologist Jakob Vinther and colleagues report September 27 in Current Biology.

Tubes stuck to the outer shells of hundreds of fossilized brachiopods discovered in an outcropping in China may have housed the earliest-known parasites.

These tubes appeared only on brachiopods — never alone or on other animals.

This suggests that the tube-dwelling creature needed the brachiopod to survive.

The process is apparently the same in a nebula or a brachiopod, although much more intricate in the latter.

Spirifer, spir′i-fėr, n. a brachiopod of the Carboniferous system.

A genus unfigured and imperfectly described as differing in some respects from Terebratula and other Brachiopod.