Chitinozoa (English singular: chitinozoan, plural: chitinozoans) are a group of flask-shaped marine microfossils (50-2000 micrometres) which appear dark or almost opaque when viewed using a light microscope. They are used as stratigraphic markers in biostratigraphy from uppermost Cambrian through Ordovician and Silurian to Devonian.

Alfred Eisenack was the first to give a detailed description of chitinozoa in 1931.

External links

• CIMP Chitinozoan Subcommission (http://www.shef.ac.uk/~cidmdp/cimpsubc.html)
• Commission Internationale de Microflore du Paléozoique (CIMP) (http://www.shef.ac.uk/~cidmdp/), international commission for Palaeozoic palynology.
• Centre for Palynology, University of Sheffield, UK (http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/palysc/index.html)
• The Micropalaeontological Society (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/tms/)
• The American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists (AASP) (http://www.palynology.org/)

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