Animalia > Thaumaptilon

Thaumaptilon

Synonyms: Thaumoptilon

Wikipedia Abstract

Thaumaptilon is a fossil from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale which some authors have compared to members of the Ediacaran biota, generally believed to have disappeared at the start of the Cambrian, 542 million years ago. It was up to 20 cm long, and attached itself to the sea floor with a holdfast. Leaf-shaped, Thaumaptilon had a central axis extending to its tip, with many "ribs" radiating from it, in a similar manner to the ribs of a leaf. these may have had canals connecting them to the axis. One side of its surface was covered in spots, which might have been zooids.
View Wikipedia Record: Thaumaptilon

External References

Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0