Cigara

The body of Cigara has three parts, with the middle part creating a roughly 40° bend between the conical outer parts. The middle part features an unusual lattice structure of thin elongate plates crossing in X-shaped patterns. Neither of the specimens preserve the end of either cone, and no feeding appendages are apparent. ==Classification==

The assignment of Cigara to the Eocrinoidea has been based on the presence of respiratory structures known as epispires in middle section of the body. Rejected affinities While Cigara has previously been proposed as synonymous with Dendrocystites (a solute), or with Acanthocystites (a gogiid eocrinoid), the 1967 Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology deemed these associations "unacceptable" and placed it in the section for unclassified eocrinoids. More recent research has suggested that the stylophoran aulacophore is most parsimoniously interpreted as a modified brachiole, as the water vascular system is not accompanied by the a somatocoelar derivative as it is in crinoid arms. Additionally, while most brachioles have biserial ossicles, in several species they are monoserial as they are in stylophorans. Therefore Cigara having stylophoran affinites would not remove it from the blastozoa. Later taxonomies have continued to include Cigara in Eocrinoidea, albeit tentatively. ==References==