Chitinozoa are microscopic fossils with organic-walled skeletons (tests or vesicles) measuring 0.05-2.0 mm in length and resembling minute flasks (Figs. 1-3). The major features of the test are named in Fig. 4. Most Chitinozoa occur as single tests, but frequently two or more tests are found joined together aperture-to-base in linear chains. Such chains are known in all the common genera. The Chitinozoa were named after their chitinoid appearance by their discoverer, the German micropaleontologist Alfred Eisenack (1931). Their systematic position is not known but they are treated taxonomically as animals and probably are monophyletic. They are classified according to the overall shape of the test, ornamentation, the nature of the basal margin, the tendency to occur in chains, the nature of the internal prosome-operculum structure, and size. More than 50 genera and 500 species have been described. Chitinozoa appeared during Tremadoc time, diversified rapidly in the Ordovician and...
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Jenkins, W.A.M. (1979). Chitinozoa . In: Paleontology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31078-9_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31078-9_32
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