Homalozoa

Homalozoa is an obsolete extinct subphylum of Paleozoic era echinoderms, prehistoric marine invertebrates.

Many of them were stalked, similar to sea lilies (crinoids), but often their bodies were bent over, so that the mouth and anus projected forwards rather than upwards.

However, it is now generally accepted that homalozoans were echinoderms because their calcite skeleton was composed of the typical stereom crystalline structure.

[6] They include the unusual stylophorans (mitrates and cornutes), Homoiostelea (solutes), the Homostelea (cinctans), and the Ctenocystoidea (ctenoid-bearing homalozoans).

Solute fossils have an irregularly shaped flattened body covered in calcite plates, and are up to about 10 cm long.