Paleozoic animals of North America

Orthacanthus is an extinct genus of fresh-water xenacanthiform cartilaginous fish, named by Louis Agassiz in 1843, ranging from the Upper Carboniferous into the Lower Permian. Orthacanthus had a nektobenthic life habitat, with a carnivorous diet. Multiple authors have also discovered evidence of cannibalism in the diet of Orthacanthus and of "filial cannibalism" where adult Orthacanthus preyed upon juvenile Orthacanthus. Synonyms of the genus Orthacanthus are Dittodus Owen, 1867, Didymodus Cope, 1883, Diplodus Agassiz, 1843, Chilodus Giebel, 1848 (preoccupied by Chilodus Müller & Troschel, 184

Favosites is an extinct genus of tabulate coral characterized by polygonal closely packed corallites (giving it the common name "honeycomb coral"). The walls between corallites are pierced by pores known as mural pores which allowed transfer of nutrients between polyps. Favosites, like many corals, thrived in warm sunlit seas, feeding by filtering microscopic plankton with their stinging tentacles and often forming part of reef complexes. The genus had a worldwide distribution from the Late Ordovician to Late Permian. ==Distribution== Favosites had a vast distribution, and its fossils can be

Spirifer is a genus of marine brachiopods belonging to the order Spiriferida and family Spiriferidae. Species belonging to the genus lived in the Carboniferous (certainly in the Tournaisian and in the Visean, possibly also in the Serpukhovian and the Bashkirian).

Chonetes is an extinct genus of brachiopods. It ranged from the Late Ordovician to the Middle Jurassic.

Scenella is an extinct genus of fossil invertebrate animal which is generally considered to be a mollusc; at various times it has been suggested that this genus belongs with the gastropods, the monoplacophorans, or the helcionellids, although no firm association with any of these classes has been established. An affinity with the hydrozoa (as a flotation device) has been considered, although some authors oppose this hypothesis. A gastropod affinity is defended on the basis of six pairs of internal muscle scars, whilst the serially-repeated nature of these scars suggests to other authors a mono

Adelophthalmus is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Adelophthalmus have been discovered in deposits ranging in age from the Early Devonian to the Early Permian, which makes it the longest lived of all known eurypterid genera, with a total temporal range of over 120 million years. Adelopththalmus was the final genus of the Eurypterina suborder of eurypterids and consisted the only known genus of swimming eurypterids from the Middle Devonian until its extinction during the Permian, after which the few surviving eurypterids were all walking forms of the sub