Pelecyogyra fezouataensis

Pelecyogyra fezouataensis is a new genus and a new species. This is the first Onychochilidae reported from the Ordovician of Morocco. Onychochilidae is an extinct family of small fossil mollusks from the Late Cambrian to Early Devonian, they have coiled shells that generally have smooth whorls or "turns" and elongated openings. Its stratigraphic position bridges the gap between the Late Cambrian and Middle to Upper Ordovician records. This new taxon brings together large specimens, reaching 27 mm in their greatest diameter, with 3 whorls that expand rapidly.

The Fezouata deposits, near the Moroccan city of Zagora, are providing a rich sample of a fauna similar, although later in time, to the famous Burgess Shale (Canada). We are talking about fossils between 480 and 472 million years old. The age indicates that the Burgess Shale type communities were not restricted, as was believed, to the early stages of the Cambrian and then suddenly disappeared, but rather they survived much longer, coexisted with the later fauna and would be the normal type of deep sea fauna throughout the planet. So Morocco was an ocean and was over the South Pole.