Rangeomorph

The Rangeomorpha are a group of organisms from the Ediacaran, the top period of the Proterozoic. With an age 575-560 million years ago, they are among the oldest representatives of the Ediacaran fauna. Fossils of the group are known on the Avalon Peninsula on the Canadian island of Newfoundland, especially of Mistaken Point, but also from other places on earth. Among the most famous genres include bushy growing Bradgatia from England, which spread around the world, a fern leaf resembling Charnia and Charniodiscus, the lobed Ivesia and Rangea.

Features

The Rangeomorpha were sessile organisms that could reach sizes in the lower decimeter, in most cases resembled fern leaves or three-dimensional bushes and were usually attached with an adhesive disc on the seabed. The largest form, Charnia could reach a height of one meter. The growth of the fractal- Rangeomorpha is, that the branch of a central axis side branches showed a remarkable self-similarity and scale invariance of high central axis, as well as the side branches in their side branches. Kevin J. Peterson and colleagues suspected that the Rangeomorpha similar fungal mycelium food over its entire surface recordings. They were probably capable of vegetative reproduction.

There was fusiform Rangeomorpha, the pads on the seabed, and bush, spring bush, comb - shaped fronds and who held himself with an adhesive disc. They dominated ecosystems of the early Ediacaran, as it probably was no or hardly any mobile or grave border larger creatures. In more recent layers of the Ediacaran they occurred only rarely on, perhaps as a result of a competition with moving animals such as Kimberella or Yorgia, and missing eg already completely in the Burgess Shale.

The Rangeomorpha probably form a monophyletic group, ie, a monophyletic group that includes a common ancestor and all its descendants. You are probably more closely related to any modern living creatures group and represent a lost form of multicellular life. However, according to Kevin J. Peterson and colleagues they could be home group representative of the fungi (Fungi ) or at least the mushrooms are closer than the multicellular animals ( Metazoa ).