Raw data from microCT tomography of Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi

Fossil comatulids, referred to as feather stars, are mostly known from highly disarticulated specimens. A single isolated element (centrodorsal) has been the basis for taxonomic description of a vast majority of fossil comatulids. Here, we report a nearly complete, and thus extremely rare, comatulid from the Upper Jurassic (Tithonian) of the Blue Nile Basin in central western Ethiopia that provides a unique insight into the morphology of comatulid arms and cirri. It is assigned to Ausichicrinites messingi gen. et sp. nov. and is the first Jurassic comatulid from the African continent. The new taxon shows close resemblance with the modern family Zygometridae, exclusively known from the Holocene of the western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans.