MICROFOSSILS | Chitinozoa

The chitinozoans are strange and fascinating organic-walled microfossils. They appeared in the Early Ordovician (Tremadocian) and proliferated worldwide for 120 million years, until their extinction in the topmost Devonian (latest Famennian). The chitinozoans are exclusively recovered from marine deposits. They are usually abundant in sediments deposited under a low to moderate hydrodynamic regime. The biological significance of these microfossils and their systematic position have long been a matter of debate. The hypothesis that chitinozoans were eggs of soft-bodied metazoans is considered as the most likely.