Soluta (echinoderm)
| Soluta Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| Fossil specimen of Coleicarpus sprinklei | |
| Silhouette of Castericystis | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Clade: | Ambulacraria |
| Phylum: | Echinodermata |
| Subphylum: | †Blastozoa (?) |
| Class: | †Soluta Jaekel, 1901 |
| Orders | |
| |
Soluta is an extinct class of echinoderms that lived from the Middle Cambrian to the Early Devonian. The class is also known by its junior synonym Homoiostelea. Soluta is one of the four "carpoid" classes, alongside Ctenocystoidea, Cincta, and Stylophora, which made up the obsolete subphylum Homalozoa. Solutes (or solutans) were asymmetric animals with a stereom skeleton and two appendages, an arm extending anteriorly and a posterior appendage called a homoiostele.