A new Middle Ordovician sponge from western Newfoundland

Abstract

Two specimens of the new sponge Epiplastospongia coactilis. n.gen., n.sp., have been collected from the Middle Ordovician Long Point Group of western Newfoundland. The massive sponge has a three dimensional skeletal net composed of ascending and of roughly horizontal, discontinuous, structural elements, all composed of laminated to concentrically layered, unsculptured, monaxial spicules overgrowing a core of monaxons. The Newfoundland sponge appears to be most closely related to Saccospongia from the Ordovician of Tennessee.