Invertebrate life became increasingly diverse and complex through the Ordovician. Both calcareous and siliceous sponges are known; among other types, the stromatoporoids first appeared in the Ordovician. Tabulata (platform) and rugosa corals (horn corals) also first appeared in the Ordovician, the solitary or horn corals being especially distinctive. Bryozoans (moss animals) and brachiopods (lamp shells) were a dominant component of many assemblages. Mollusks were also common and included the gastropods, monoplacophorans (limpet-shaped, segmented mollusks), bivalves, cephalopods, chitons, scaphopods (tusk shells), and rostroconchs (single-shelled mollusks).

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The fossil record of Ordovician annelids (worms and leeches) consists chiefly of small, calcareous tubes, tiny jaws made up of phosphate material, and trace fossils. Trilobites are common and diverse in Ordovician strata but do not dominate assemblages as they did in the Cambrian Period. Ordovician arthropods are also represented by the ostracods (tiny crustaceans) as well as by much rarer forms such as branchiopods, barnacles, phyllocarid (“leaf”) shrimp, aglaspids (primitive horseshoe crabs), and eurypterids (sea scorpions).

Echinoderms reached their peak diversity of 20 classes during the Ordovician, with crinoids (a group related to present-day sea lilies and feather stars), cystoids (spherical, stalked echinoderms), asteroids (starfishes), edrioasteroids (sessile, plate-covered echinoderms), and homalozoans (asymmetrical echinoderms) being the most common. Graptolites (small, colonial, planktonic animals) and conodonts (toothlike remains of primitive chordates) are among the most important fossils in the Ordovician for correlating, or demonstrating age equivalence between, different layers of rock.

Early fishes

Until the discovery in 1999 of Early Cambrian vertebrates in South China, the oldest generally accepted vertebrates were known from the Ordovician. The first examples were two genera of primitive fishes, described by American geologist Charles Doolittle Walcott in the late 19th century, from the Upper Ordovician Harding Sandstone of Colorado. Subsequently, fish fragments have been described from the later part of the Early Ordovician Epoch to the early Middle Ordovician of Australia and from the first part of the Late Ordovician of Bolivia. Unconfirmed fish remains have also been reported from the Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician epochs of Spitsbergen, Greenland, Germany, and many localities in North America.

The complete morphology of these fishes is unknown, and only fragments and individual scales have been found. Most specimens are made up of individual bony plates covered by ridges and nodes. Enough fragmentary material has been found, however, to allow a reconstruction of these animals. Their heads appear to have been covered by densely interlocking plates and their bodies by rows of thinner plates. The tail structure is unknown.

All of these fossils are interpreted to be agnathans, or jawless fishes. The environment in which they lived continues to be disputed, although the interpreted environment at all of the localities is similar. At all three locations, sediments were laid down in very shallow marine to marginal marine environments, possibly with low salinity as found in lagoons and estuaries. The fishes are interpreted to have fed on organic matter on the seafloor.

Reefs

Reefs are known throughout the Ordovician Period, although the types of organisms that built them changed over time. Most Ordovician reefs are rather small, typically up to 5 metres (16 feet) thick, though some are up to 20 to 30 metres (65 to 100 feet) thick. Most Ordovician reefs were built on continental shelves or in shallow seas within the continental interior, although some were built at the edge of continental shelves or on the continental slopes. Earliest Ordovician reefs were most commonly mud mounds built by microbes, algae, and sponges. Microbial mounds are also known from the latest Ordovician times. Stromatoporoid and coral patch reefs first appeared in the Middle Ordovician Epoch and persisted after the close of the Ordovician Period, whereas the first appearance of bryozoan mounds and red algal reefs occurred during the Middle Ordovician Epoch. Large carbonate mud mounds containing a diverse suite of reef-building organisms first appeared in the latest part of the Early Ordovician Epoch and are notable in that they attained thicknesses exceeding 250 metres (820 feet).

Earliest land plants

The Ordovician contains the oldest generally accepted remains of land plants, in the form of cuticle fragments and spores. Fragments of cuticle lack stomata and other structures and have eluded identification. The spores are more diagnostic, and two types are known. Cryptospores (sporelike structures predating land plants) first appeared in the Early Ordovician Epoch and rapidly spread to all continents. Through this time their morphology changed little and shows minute evolution.

Trilete spores, which divide via meiosis to form a tetrad of cells that disperse separately, first appeared in the late Late Ordovician and form a rare, geographically isolated component in cryptospore assemblages. Although spores are known from older rocks, cryptospore and trilete spores are thought to be the direct ancestors of land plants because of their size, gross morphology, and wall structure, their abundance in nonmarine and marginal marine deposits, and their association later in the geologic record with definite land plants. Cryptospores were limited to life in damp habitats. Their distribution over a wide range of latitudes suggests their adaptability to many environments, as opposed to the much more narrowly distributed triletes.

These plant fossils suggest two phases of evolution. Cryptospores are thought to be the precursors of nonvascular plants of the liverwort or bryophyte grade of organization. Triletes are thought to be the originators of vascular plants and may have been similar to the Late Silurian and Early Devonian rhyniophytes. Both forms are thought to have arisen from green algae. Although both the cryptospore- and trilete-producing plants gave rise to other plants, both are now thought to be extinct.