Archaeocyatha

Archaeocyatha (/ˈɑːrkioʊsaɪəθə/, 'ancient cups') is a taxon of extinct, sessile, reef-building marine sponges that lived in warm tropical and subtropical waters during the Cambrian Period. It is believed that the centre of the Archaeocyatha origin is now located in East Siberia, where they are first known from the beginning of the Tommotian Age of the Cambrian, 525 million years ago (mya). In other regions of the world, they appeared much later, during the Atdabanian, and quickly diversified into over a hundred families.

They became the planet's very first reef-building animals and are an index fossil for the Lower Cambrian worldwide.