Nassellaria

Nassellaria is an order of Rhizaria belonging to the class Radiolaria. The organisms of this order are characterized by a skeleton cross link with a cone or ring.

== Introduction == Nassellaria is an order of Radiolaria under the class Polycystina. These organisms are unicellular eukaryotic heterotrophic plankton typically with a siliceous cone-shaped skeleton. The most common group of radiolarians are the polycystine radiolarians, which are divided into two subgroups: the spumellarians and the nassellarians. Both spumellarians and nassellarians are common chert-forming microfossils and are important in stratigraphical dating, as the oldest radiolarians are Precambrian in age. The nassellarians appear in the fossil record much later than their other polycystine relatives, the spumellarians. spumellarians can be seen as far back as the Precambrian, whereas nassellarians do not begin to appear until the Carboniferous. Nassellarians are believed to have been increasing in species diversity since the beginning of the Cenozoic.