Aquillapollenites

Aquillapollenites is an extinct morphogenus of Late Cretaceous angiosperm pollen grain. Aquillapollenites was a very large group containing something like 80 total species, but all of them were typified by their triprojectate structure: three processes extend from the equator of the pollen grain and one process extends upwards to each pole, giving Aquillapollenites the shape of a child's jack. This strange shape may improve the buoyancy of the pollen grain. Colpi occupy each terminus of the equatorial projectates, making Aquillapollenites tricolporate.[1]

Aquillapollenities was mostly extinct by the end of the Cretaceous, but a few species survive across the K-T boundary into the Eocene Epoch.[2] North America's northern animal biome approximately correspond with the Aquillapollenites palynofloral province.[3]

It has been suggested that Aquillapollenites is a pollen type produced by an extinct member of the mistletoe family, but this remains uncertain.[1]

References
  1. Traverse, Alfred (1988). Paleopalynology. Unwin Hyman. ISBN 978-0045610013. OCLC 17674795.
  2. Duck Keun Choi (December 1984). "A new eocene triprojectate pollen genus from the Canadian Arctic, Novemprojectus". Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology. 43 (4): 337–341. doi:10.1016/0034-6667(84)90004-6. ISSN 0034-6667.
  3. Lehman, T. M., 2001, Late Cretaceous dinosaur provinciality: In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life, edited by Tanke, D. H., and Carpenter, K., Indiana University Press, pp. 310-328.
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