marsupite

English

Etymology

From Latin marsupium, marsuppium (“pouch, purse”) + English -ite; see also marsupial.

Noun

marsupite (plural marsupites)

  1. (paleontology) A fossil crinoid of the genus Marsupites, resembling a purse.
    • 1839, Gideon Algernon Mantell, The Wonders of Geology, volume 1, page 309:
      The most remarkable fossil of this class is the marsupite, which I have thus named from its resemblance, when closed, to a purse. The marsupite (Tab. 51) was a molluscous animal, of a sub-ovate form, having the mouth, which was surrounded by arms, or tentacula, in the centre.
    • 1839, Rosina Maria Zornlin, Recreations in Geology, page 84:
      The crinoideans are sparingly distributed in the cretaceous group; the most remarkable is the marsupite, which appears to have been an unattached crinoidean.
    • 1843, J. Chaning Pearce, On an entirely new form of Encrinite from the Dudley Limestone: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Zoology, Botany and Geology, volume 12, page 472:
      The plates of the head are thin and broad, and marked on their outer surface by lines of growth, and radiating ridges resembling the plates of the marsupite.

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