User:89Intrepid/sandbox

Somasteroidea is an extinct, possibly paraphyletic class of echinoderms from the Early and Mid Ordovician.

Somasteroids would have generally resembled relatively flat starfish with short, broad arms connected to a proportionately wide central disk. The aboral (upper) surface of the body was covered in a series of small ossicles that could be either granular or tripartite rodlike in shape. The oral (lower) surface of the body possesed a characteristic set of virgals, rod-like plates that formed linear rays emanating from the mouth and main axis of each arm, and terminating at the body's silhouette. The relatively loosely constructed skeleton composed of numerous small elements suggests that Somasteroids would have been rather flexible in life.