Paucipodia

Paucipodia inermis is a lobopod known from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang lagerstätte.[1] Its gut is puzzling; in some places, it is preserved in three dimensions, infilled with sediment; whereas in others it may be flat. These cannot result from phosphatisation, which is usually responsible for three-dimensional gut preservation,[2] for the phosphate content of the guts is under 1% – the contents comprise quartz and muscovite.[1] Its fossils do not suggest it had any sclerites, especially when compared with the related Hallucigenia.[1]

Paucipodia inermis
Temporal range: Cambrian Stage 3
reconstruction of P. inermis (right), and Hallucigenia sparsa (left) for scale.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
(unranked): Panarthropoda
Phylum: "Lobopodia"
Class: Xenusia
Order: Archonychophora
Family: Paucipodiidae
Hou et al., 2004
Genus: Paucipodia
Chen, Zhou & Ramsköld, 1995
Species:
P. inermis
Binomial name
Paucipodia inermis
Chen, Zhou & Ramsköld, 1995

See also

  • Lobopod guts

References

  1. Xian-Guang Hou; Xiao-Ya Ma; Jie Zhao; Jan Bergström (2004). "The lobopodian Paucipodia inermis from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, Yunnan, China". Lethaia. 37 (3): 235–244. doi:10.1080/00241160410006555.
  2. Nicholas J. Butterfield (2002). "Leanchoilia guts and the interpretation of three-dimensional structures in Burgess Shale-type fossils". Paleobiology. 28 (1): 155–171. doi:10.1666/0094-8373(2002)028<0155:LGATIO>2.0.CO;2.


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