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Banffiidae
Banfiidae is a family of extinct banffozoan animals from North America and China. The family name is sometimes spelt Banffidae. It includes ''Banffia'', ''Heteromorphus'', and possibly ''Skeemella''. The family may be paraphyletic. A ''Heteromorphus''-like dwarf Banffozoa#Form A, "Form A" is allied with this group at the class level, but has not been formally described or assigned to this family. Description Banffiids have a bipartite body with a smooth anterior part that may or may not have a lateral groove, and a posterior part with many segments. Lateral pouches have not been seen, although some questions remain regarding their possible presence in ''Skeemella''. The entire body is twisted dextrally (from an anterior view). Gut diverticula may be present, but the structures interpreted as such could alternatively be a circulatory system. The anus is terminal, despite initial reports to the contrary in ''Heteromorphus''. Distribution Banffiids have been found across multiple ...
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Banffia Confusa
''Heteromorphus'' is an extinct genus of Banffiidae, banffiid from the lower Cambrian Chengjiang lagerstatte. It contains one broadly accepted species, ''Heteromorphus confusus'', as well as a proposed junior synonym, ''Heteromorphus longicaudatus'' that may prove to be a separate species as additional specimens are examined. A much smaller species labeled "Form A" is allied with ''Heteromorphus'' at the class (biology), class level but has not been formally described or assigned to ''Heteromorphus'' itself. Description Like ''Banffia'', ''Heteromorphus'' has a two-part body with a notable constriction between the parts, and a crossover that effectively reverses the dorsal and ventral sides between the anterior and posterior sections. The posterior portion is segmented, although the common presence of wrinkling makes counting the segments difficult. The anterior body shape ranges from torpedo-like to more rectangular, with a near-vertical anterior edge. ''Heteromorphus'' is ...
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Banffozoa
Banffozoa (also called Heteromorphida) is an extinct class of bilaterians. Most workers place it in the Vetulicolia, but the protostome-like features of some members have motivated ongoing debate. Banffozoa consists of the order Banffiata (which has only one family, Banffiidae) as well as a dwarf "Form A" that has not been formally described or named. '' Skeemella'' has been placed ''incertae sedis'' in this class, but has more recently been placed with the Banffiidae (if it is a banffozoan or vetulicolian at all). Banffozoa may be paraphyletic even if Vetulicolia is monophyletic. Description Banffozoans have a bipartite body with a smooth anterior part that generally lacks evidence of segmentation and may or may not have a lateral groove. The posterior section features far more segments than the Vetulicolida, and (except in ''Skeemella'') these segments are each much narrower as well. Lateral pouches such as those found in the Vetulicolida have not been seen, although s ...
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Heteromorphus
''Heteromorphus'' is an extinct genus of banffiid from the lower Cambrian Chengjiang lagerstatte. It contains one broadly accepted species, ''Heteromorphus confusus'', as well as a proposed junior synonym, ''Heteromorphus longicaudatus'' that may prove to be a separate species as additional specimens are examined. A much smaller species labeled "Form A" is allied with ''Heteromorphus'' at the class level but has not been formally described or assigned to ''Heteromorphus'' itself. Description Like ''Banffia'', ''Heteromorphus'' has a two-part body with a notable constriction between the parts, and a crossover that effectively reverses the dorsal and ventral sides between the anterior and posterior sections. The posterior portion is segmented, although the common presence of wrinkling makes counting the segments difficult. The anterior body shape ranges from torpedo-like to more rectangular, with a near-vertical anterior edge. ''Heteromorphus'' is separated from ''Banffia'' ...
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Vetulicolidae
Vetulicolidae is a vetulicolian family from the Cambrian Stage 3 Maotianshan Shale and Sirius Passet Lagerstätte that consists of ''Vetulicola'', ''Beidazoon'', and ''Ooedigera''. It is distinguished from the Didazoonidae by a harder body wall and the lack of an oral disc. Description Members of the Vetulicolidae have relatively robust body coverings, with a subquadrate to elongate (in lateral view) anterior part and an elongate, segmented posterior part. The marginal zone of the anterior part may have short projections dorsally and postereodorsally. As diagnosed by Aldridge ''et al.'' in 2007, the anterior part is said to bear five annulations, and a lateral groove is not mentioned for the family. However, with and the addition of ''Ooedigera'' not all genera possess annulations in the anterior section, and with the re-classification of ''Yuyuannozoon'' each genus currently assigned to this family bears a lateral groove. Vetulicolids range in size from ''Beidazoon'' (around ...
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Nesonektris
''Nesonektris aldridgei'' is an extinct vetulicolian from the Late Botomian-aged Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätte in Kangaroo Island, Australia. So far, it is the fourth described vetulicolian that is not restricted to the Maotianshan Shales (the other three being '' Ooedigera'' of Sirius Passet, '' Banffia'' of the Burgess Shale, and '' Skeemella'' of the Pierson Cove Formation above the Wheeler Shale). Description ''N. aldridgei'' is known from several incomplete fossils which suggest that, in life, it was a fairly large animal (when compared to other vetulicolians). The largest fossil is about 150 millimetres ( 5.9 inches) long, leading researchers to estimate that that individual was about 170 millimetres (6.7 inches) long. The exquisitely preserved fossils show that running the length inside the tail was a notochord, thereby demonstrating the animal's chordate affinities as being related to tunicates. The forebody, and overall form are similar to vetulicolids of Vetulicol ...
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Wheeler Shale
The Wheeler Shale (named by Charles Walcott) is a Cambrian ( 507  Ma) fossil locality world-famous for prolific agnostid and ''Elrathia kingii'' trilobite remains (even though many areas are barren of fossils) and represents a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte. Varied soft bodied organisms are locally preserved, a fauna (including ''Naraoia'', ''Wiwaxia'' and ''Hallucigenia'') and preservation style ( carbonaceous film) normally associated with the more famous Burgess Shale. As such, the Wheeler Shale also represents a Konservat-Lagerstätten. Together with the Marjum Formation and lower Weeks Formation, the Wheeler Shale forms of limestone and shale exposed in one of the thickest, most fossiliferous and best exposed sequences of Middle Cambrian rocks in North America. At the type locality of Wheeler Amphitheater, House Range, Millard County, western Utah, the Wheeler Shale consists of a heterogeneous succession of highly calcareous shale, shaley limestone, mudstone and t ...
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Total Group
In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor. It is thus a way of defining a clade, a group consisting of a species and all its extant or extinct descendants. For example, Neornithes (birds) can be defined as a crown group, which includes the most recent common ancestor of all modern birds, and all of its extant or extinct descendants. The concept was developed by Willi Hennig, the formulator of phylogenetic systematics, as a way of classifying living organisms relative to their extinct relatives in his "Die Stammesgeschichte der Insekten", and the "crown" and "stem" group terminology was coined by R. P. S. Jefferies in 1979. Though formulated in the 1970s, the term was not commonly used until its reintroduction in 2000 by Graham Budd and Sören Jensen. Contents of the crown gro ...
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Chordata
A chordate ( ) is a bilaterian animal belonging to the phylum Chordata ( ). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five distinctive physical characteristics (Apomorphy and synapomorphy, synapomorphies) that distinguish them from other Taxon, taxa. These five synapomorphies are a notochord, a neural tube, hollow dorsal nerve cord, an endostyle or thyroid, pharyngeal slits, and a post-anus, anal tail. In addition to the morphological characteristics used to define chordates, analysis of genome sequences has identified two conserved signature indels (CSIs) in their proteins: cyclophilin-like protein and inner mitochondrial membrane protease ATP23, which are exclusively shared by all vertebrates, tunicates and cephalochordates. These CSIs provide molecular means to reliably distinguish chordates from all other animals. Chordates are divided into three phylum, subphyla: Vertebrata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals), whose notochor ...
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Didazoon
''Didazoon haoae'' is an extinct species of vetulicolid vetulicolian described by Shu, et al. based on fossils found in the Qiongzhusi (Chiungchussu) Formation, Yu'anshan Member (Eoredlichia zone), Lower Cambrian, in the Dabanqiao area (Kunming), about 60 km northwest of Chengjiang, China. Etymology "Dida" abbreviates (in Chinese) the China University of Geosciences. Description The fossils show that the body of the animal was covered in a thin, flexible cuticle. The anterior part of the body was divided into six segments, with fairly broad membranes separating the segments, and the posterior part of the body was divided into seven segments. The constriction between the anterior and posterior parts of the animal shows creasing, and the authors hypothesize that it was quite flexible. The fossils are interpreted as showing a large anterior opening, presumably a mouth, a spacious anterior cavity, an alimentary canal, possibly voluminous in the anterior section, and a narro ...
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