The lophophore of a brachiopod serves the same function as the gills in a bivalve.
Brachiopods are marine animals that secrete a shell consisting of two parts called valves. Their fossils are common in the Pennsylvanian and Permian limestones of eastern Kansas.
Brachiopods have an extensive fossil record, first appearing in rocks dating back to the early part of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago. They were extremely abundant during the Paleozoic Era, reaching their highest diversity roughly 400 million years ago, during the Devonian Period.
At the end of the Paleozoic, however, they were decimated in the mass extinction that marks the end of the Permian Period, about 252 million years ago.
Although some brachiopods survived and their descendants live in today's oceans, they never achieved their former abundance and diversity. Only about 300 to 500 species of brachiopods exist today, a small fraction of the perhaps 15,000 species (living and extinct) that make up the phylum Brachiopoda.
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