Spineless Song of Week - Receptaculites

Receptaculites oweni, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Photo Credit B.S. Lieberman
This week's Spineless Song is a collaboration, once again, between myself and Christopher Taylor from the Catalogue of Organisms. The lyrics are entirely his and I do the strumming, howling and terrible overdubbed solos. This week we are extending our collaboration and making this a joint, cross-blog post. I provide the entertainment and pizzazz, Christopher provides the edutainment and, as typical of him, well researched and interesting articles.

*I recommend opening up this song in a new window (number 12 in the Spineless Song Sidebar!) for your listening pleasure while you head over to Catalogue and read about an interesting and problematic fossil taxon and decide for yourself: Is it a sponge, or is it a plant?

Sung to the tune of Particle Man by They Might Be Giants.

Receptaculites (lyrics by Christopher Taylor)

Receptaculites, Receptaculites,
Sitting around in Devonian times,
Is it a sponge, or is it a plant?
Nobody knows, Receptaculites

Its meroms are close, its body's globose,
A sessile lifestyle's the one that it chose,
But where on the tree are we gonna put those?
How can we say, Receptaculites

Archaeocyath, archaeocyath,
Not quite so much trouble by half,
It's probably a sponge, but may have an out
With Archaeata, Archaeocyath

Archaeocyath, Archaeocyath,
Placed in Archaeata with Receptaculites,
Convergence suspected, they're taken apart,
Not even close, Receptaculites

Cyclocrinites, Cyclocrinites
Looks a bit like Receptaculites,
They may form a class, Together they go,
But we still haven't a clue, Receptaculites