Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 296, Issue 5577, Pages 2383-2386Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1071599
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We describe a Proterozoic, fully biomineralized metazoan from the Omkyk Member (similar to million years before the present) of the northern Nama Group, Namibia. Namapoikia rietoogensis gen. et sp. nov. is up to 1 meter in diameter and bears a complex and robust biomineralized skeleton; it probably represents a cnidarian or poriferan. Namapoikia encrusts perpendicular to the walls of vertical synsedimentary fissures in microbial reefs. This finding implies that large, modular metazoans with biologically controlled mineralization appeared some 15 million years earlier than previously documented.
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