marsupite

plural marsupites

1. biologyA fossil crinoid of the genus Marsupites, resembling a purse.

   The crinoideans are sparingly distributed in the cretaceous group; the most remarkable is the marsupite, which appears to have been an unattached crinoidean.

   1839, Rosina Maria Zornlin, Recreations in Geology, page 84

   2 more examples

   The most remarkable fossil of this class is the marsupite, which I have thus named from its resemblance, when closed, to a purse. The marsupite (Tab. 51) was a molluscous animal, of a sub-ovate form, having the mouth, which was surrounded by arms, or tentacula, in the centre.

   1839, Gideon Algernon Mantell, The Wonders of Geology, volume 1, page 309

   The plates of the head are thin and broad, and marked on their outer surface by lines of growth, and radiating ridges resembling the plates of the marsupite.

   1843, J. Chaning Pearce, On an entirely new form of Encrinite from the Dudley Limestone: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Zoology, Botany and Geology, volume 12, page 472