#fossil sponge

[uk-fossils]

EXCEPTIONALLY RARE: Siphonia tulipa Fossil Sponge | Upper Albian Cretaceous Haldon Hills Devon UK | Genuine Specimen with COA

Discover an exceptionally rare and scientifically significant fossil—this beautifully preserved specimen of Siphonia tulipa, an extinct Cretaceous sponge from the Upper Albian stage of the Cretaceous period, collected from the Upper Greensand Formation of the Haldon Hills, Devon, UK. Sponges of this calibre and preservation are seldom found and highly sought after by collectors and researchers alike.

Fossil Type: Sponge (Porifera)

Species: Siphonia tulipa

Geological Period: Cretaceous (~113 to 100.5 million years ago)

Geological Stage: Upper Albian

Formation: Upper Greensand

Location: Haldon Hills, Devon, United Kingdom

Scale Rule: Squares/Cube = 1cm (Please refer to the photo for accurate sizing)

Specimen: The specimen shown in the photo is the exact one you will receive

Authenticity: All of our fossils are 100% genuine specimens and come with a Certificate of Authenticity

Geological and Paleontological Information

Siphonia tulipa is a genus of extinct siliceous sponge characterised by its elegant vase- or tulip-shaped body, often with a central osculum (opening) and stalked base for attachment to the seafloor. These sponges lived in shallow marine environments during the Upper Albian of the Cretaceous period, a time marked by significant marine diversification.

Phylum: Porifera

Class: Demospongiae

Order: Hadromerida

Family: Siphoniidae

Genus: Siphonia

Species: Siphonia tulipa

Geological Stage: Upper Albian (~105 million years ago)

Depositional Environment: Shallow, warm marine shelf with calcareous and glauconitic sandy sediments typical of the Upper Greensand; ideal for sponge colonization and fossilization

Morphological Features: Distinctive tulip or flask-shaped body with a central osculum; typically hollow with preserved internal canal structures; fine surface texture may show radial ridging or tubercles

Notable: Fossils of Siphonia tulipa from Haldon Hills are extremely rare and prized for their completeness and clarity of preservation

Biozone: Correlates with Upper Albian ammonite zones (e.g., Mortoniceras inflatum Zone), aiding regional stratigraphic dating

Identifier: First formally described in 19th-century British paleontological literature during the survey of the Upper Greensand faunas

Why This Fossil Is Special

This is not your average fossil sponge—Siphonia tulipa is exceptionally rare, especially in such a well-preserved state from the classic Upper Greensand of Devon. Its beautiful form, striking preservation, and scientific relevance make it a centrepiece for any fossil collection or educational exhibit.

Why Buy From Us?

100% genuine fossil with Certificate of Authenticity

Exact specimen shown is what you’ll receive

Carefully sourced from historic UK fossil sites

Ideal for collectors, researchers, and museums

Secure this remarkable example of ancient marine life—an exceptionally rare Siphonia tulipa fossil sponge from the Upper Albian Cretaceous of Haldon Hills, Devon, preserved for over 100 million years beneath England’s prehistoric seas.

[hellsitegenetics]

> Cymbastela cantharella

Okay but what is that thing? I thought it was a mushroom, but everything I found showed it as an animal? Is it like a coral or a sea sponge or what?

Cymbastela cantharella is a species of sea sponge, which are considered animals! just like us, they have tissues, eat other organisms, and sexually reproduce using sperm cells!

sponges are also believed to have been the first animal, with fossils indicating sponges may have existed over 760,000,000 years ago!

say hi to grandpa!

[yee-qi]

Perspectives #7

"Garden of Cambrian Sights”

Innovatiocaris/Microdictyion/Haikouichthys/Eldonia/Fortiforceps

Cambrian, 518 million years ago, Maotianshan Shales (China) The Chengjiang Biota was composed of a hugely diverse array of invertebrates. Just in this picture alone, you have Innovatiocaris, Microdictyon, Fortiforceps, Eldonia, Haikouichthys, primitive annellids, priapulida, sponges, and echinoderms. It might not have always looked as helish as this, though... Based on the third panel of "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymous Bosch.

This is a part of my Perspectives series! You can find previous entries in #perspectives on my blog.

[r-acicularis]

Geology tingz

[echinoid-fossils-on-the-rocks]

Like the pic before last evening yesterday, found this flat top piece of an brown echinodem fossil top, with flat cut grey open underside. Without many other stones here.

Then on the route back the half piece end of an new aulaxinia sulficera sponge with this wave pattern, was on the back walk from the stone road.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Fossil Friday: Choia

For the last Fossil Friday this month I thought I would talk about my favorite Cambrian fossil: Choia.

As a vertebrate paleontologist, it might seem weird that my favorite animal isn't something like Pikaia or Haikouichthys.

Let me explain. I was born and raised in the American southwest. Cholla (pronounced choy-uh) is a type of cactus found in southern Colorado and Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

My favorite variety of cholla? Jumping Cholla. That's right. I said Jumping Cactus. This cactus uses friction to throw bits of itself at those who potentially want to steal its water and it hurts like a bitch.

There are little barbs on the ends that get lodged in the skin and you need pliers to pull them out (happened to my grandma on a date with my grandpa. Fun times for them.).

Back to the fossil Choia. It is not a cactus, nor is it even a plant. It is a type of sponge.

This sponge does look remarkable like a piece of cholla cactus though which is how it got its name. Now, it probably did throw its spines like the cactus but they would have made it very difficult to eat.

it is a type of demosponge, the same kind we use for bath sponges. (I don't recommend using a Choia though. There are eight species known from Canada, Utah, China and Morocco.

It was not a very big sponge at only about 2 cm in diameter though its spicules added an extra 3 cm onto that. It lived on the seafloor where spicules may have helped hold it up above the sediment-water interface.

It was a suspension feeder so particles of organic matter were extracted from the water as they passed through canals in the sponges wall.

Hope you've come to find both Choia and cholla as cool as I do. Fossilize you later!

[syncarida]

Archaeocyatha fossils in Wilkawillina Gorge

[prasemvanguardgerman]

The new finds from the today trip to the mentioned stone road & one location with piles.

They are sponges aulaxinia sulficera - the in lengt two again and the round stone with the mold on it. I have already an specimen like this in dark flint.

Then the in half round open chert/ flint cut sponge with the inner pattern.

The first like this with an clear pattern of some struckture shown!!

And an absolutly tiny echinoid core, if you zoom in you can see the little reminicent pattern.

At first without cleaning, i was thinking it was an fungus on it, but afterwards the pattern is in the flint, likely calcite.

[atrocioushellsite]

Some fossils from our local quarry 🤩 it's one of the oldest and best preserved fossilized coral reefs in the world, I find something cool every time I go ❤️

[covenawhite66]

Named Cyathophycus balori, the newly-identified species lived during the Carboniferous period, some 315 million years ago. It resembled the  Venus Flower Basket Sponge, which is currently found in the Pacific Ocean.

When most sponges die, they usually fall apart quickly, and often only scattered remains of the spicules are preserved as fossils,

[uk-fossils]

Rare Fossil Sponge Porosphaera globularis – Upper Chalk Cretaceous, Kent UK – Genuine with COA

Discover a rare and fascinating piece of Earth’s ancient marine history with this authentic fossil sponge – Porosphaera globularis, dating from the Upper Chalk of the Late Cretaceous period. This unique specimen was sourced from Kent, UK, a region renowned for its rich fossil-bearing chalk formations.

Porosphaera globularis is a globular-shaped sponge species commonly found in chalk deposits and known for its distinctive porous structure. These sponges lived approximately 70–90 million years ago when much of Europe was submerged under a warm, shallow sea. Their preservation in chalk provides an incredible window into ancient marine ecosystems.

Item Details:

Species: Porosphaera globularis

Age: Upper Chalk, Late Cretaceous (~70–90 million years old)

Location Found: Kent, United Kingdom

Condition: 100% genuine fossil specimen with clear structural features

Scale: Scale cube in photo is 1cm – please refer to images for full sizing details

Photography: The specimen shown is the exact item you will receive

Packaging: Securely packaged to ensure safe delivery

This fossil is ideal for collectors, educators, or anyone with a passion for natural history. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, affirming its genuine origin and geological significance.

All of our fossils are carefully selected for quality and scientific interest. Don’t miss the opportunity to own a real piece of prehistoric life!

[the-unofficial-village-idiot]

The fact that sea sponges are animals makes me so happy. Sponge is animal :)

[natureandphotography1]

📷 by natureandphotography1 (Flickr, Autumn Blog, Nerdy Blog)

Please do not remove credit :)

[alphynix]

Shishania aculeata lived during the mid-Cambrian, around 512 million years ago, in shallow tropical waters covering what is now southwestern China.

Up to about 6cm in length (~2.4"), its spine-covered body was initially thought to be an early mollusc, but the discovery of more specimens has resulted in a new interpretation: instead of a slug-like creature, the fossils of Shishania might instead represent a flattened and ruptured chancelloriid.

Chancelloriids were an enigmatic group of Cambrian animals that had hollow bag-like bodies armored with numerous sharp star-shaped spines. They were historically classified as sponges due to their similar body plan and immobile filter-feeding lifestyle, and they've also been proposed to be relatives of halkieriid molluscs due to similarities in the microscopic structure of their spines – but currently it seems most likely that chancelloriids were actually their own separate lineage of early animals, closer related to eumetazoans than to sponges.

Shishania had much simpler spines than other chancelloriids, so it may represent an early stage of the evolution of these animals' armor, showing that these structures were developed from scratch rather than adapted from a pre-existing ancestral feature.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Durham University. "Scientists solve 500-million-year fossil mystery" Phys.org, 08 May. 2025, https://phys.org/news/2025-05-scientists-million-year-fossil-mystery.html

Wikipedia contributors. “Shishania” Wikipedia, 12 May 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishania

Yang, Jie, et al. "Shishania is a chancelloriid and not a Cambrian mollusk." Science 388.6747 (2025): 662-664. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv4635

Yun, Hao, et al. "Biomineralization of the Cambrian chancelloriids." Geology 49.6 (2021): 623-628. https://doi.org/10.1130/G48428.1

Zhang, Guangxu, et al. "A Cambrian spiny stem mollusk and the deep homology of lophotrochozoan scleritomes." Science 385.6708 (2024): 528-532. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado0059

[echinoid-fossils-on-the-rocks]

The haul of small fossils like an typical beachcore trip finds, but I was not near any beach or sea. I’m recently vary happy now.

All of this little fossils like the skeleton coral parts, mussels, belemnite nautiloide and crinoid traces found in my direct neighborhood & at my workplace area near the parking lot with the gravel rose beds.

I’m absolutely not near any sea. All new mussel & coral parts eagerly to find with luck within my work time outside from the last days.

After weeks of hopefully thinking, to find some coral traces myself on this area are now reality.

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Here the result of the last formation stream of 2024. Over the course of 6 hours we explored the many organisms that inhabited the reefs of the Whitewater formation.

This formation preserves a rich benthic community with many sessile animals. Towering above all were the giant columnar sponges of the genus Aulacers, up to 3 m tall Ordovician skyscrapers. Between them hovered cephalopods and swam the eurypterid Megalopraptus.

Most organisms from here wer small, just a few centimeters, which is why Discord member JW made a second size chart just to bring across how the largest animals, Megalograptus and the giant trilobite Isotelus, compared to the rest.

I think something that is often overlooked in discussions about these formations is the animals we don't have. There are no crustaceans here, no jellyfish, although they probably still made up a significant part of the biomass. These animals are simply not preserved which makes our image of the Whitewater formation incomplete and biased towards the hard shelled organism. As a paleoartist one is constantly reminded of such gaps, we have to decide how much we want to speculate or borrow from other localities, or if we want to stick strictly to the fossil record.

In these formation pieces I usually do the latter but I'm painfully aware how much I miss in each piece.

Btw. since this is the last formation piece of the year I would love to hear which one was your favorite?!