Implications of a new Early Ordovician asteroid (Echinodermata) for the phylogeny of asterozoans

Eriaster ibexensis from the very top Tremadocian of Utah is the oldest supported asteroid body-fossil record used here; Lower Cambrian Asteriacites trace fossils do not set the Asteroidea body-fossil range because their producer and mode of formation are problematic.

Eriaster ibexensis is treated as an asteroid body fossil in the cited systematic study; problematic Lower Cambrian Asteriacites traces are not used as an Asteroidea body-fossil assignment.

Eriaster ibexensis is a source-bounded very-top-Tremadocian record from Utah, United States; it does not establish a global asteroid distribution or origin centre.

The Eriaster body-fossil study does not establish class-wide diet, habitat preference, locomotor performance, body-size distribution or guild for Asteroidea; only source-bounded marine depositional context is retained.

The cited study documents Eriaster ibexensis body-fossil anatomy; the profile keeps this specimen-level morphology separate from problematic trace fossils and from a class-wide trait inventory.