Stromatoporoidea
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| Order: | Stromatoporoidea
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Stromatoporoidea is an order of colonial aquatic invertebrates that until recently was believed to have gone extinct in the Devonian. Stromatoporoids dominated in the Silurian and Devonian, but fossils have been found in carbonate sequences from the Cambrian to the Oligocene[1]. These invertebrates were important reef-formers throughout the Paleozoic but especially from the Ordovician to the Devonian[1]. The group was previously thought to be related to the corals and placed in the phylum Cnidaria. It is now thought to belong to the sponges (Porifera). There are numerous fossil forms, dating from the Cambrian to the Cretaceous periods, with spherical, branching or encrusting skeletons of lime.
The living members of this order are recognized by the zoological society as sclerosponges, but are identical to what the paleontological community has identified as stromatoporoids. It is poor communication between these two groups that has caused improper naming of this order and some confusion. Today stromatoporoids have been relegated to a marginal existence in areas intolerable to other reefing benthos.
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