Fossil Urasterella Bundenbach Germany
Urasterella asperula is an extinct sea star species from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate of Germany (Kaub Formation, upper Lower Devonian, ~400 million years old), found chiefly around Bundenbach in the Hunsrück region. It's the most commonly recovered starfish from this famous fossil lagerstätte, prized for its exceptional preservation: soft tissues are often replaced by pyrite, giving specimens a striking metallic sheen.
Morphologically, it has a small body disc with a six-sided central plate, an oral skeleton of triangular flat ossicles, and a small rounded madreporite. Its narrow arms bear fine, hair-thin spines on the upper surface and longer spines along the underside plates. A rarer related species, U. verruculosa, is also known from the same deposits.
Size
Measures 4.5”x 3”.
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