''Dalyia'' is a genus of worm-like fossilized organisms found in the

Walcott Quarry The Walcott Quarry is the most famous quarry of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, located in the Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies () or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, i ...

and Trilobite beds of the

Burgess shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fos ...

from the middle

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

. Due to its branching structure, it was previously interpreted as a

red alga Red algae, or Rhodophyta (, ; ), make up one of the oldest groups of eukaryotic algae. The Rhodophyta comprises one of the largest Phylum, phyla of algae, containing over 7,000 recognized species within over 900 Genus, genera amidst ongoing taxon ...

. However further examinations in 2015 suggest they may instead be

pterobranchs Pterobranchia, members of which are often called pterobranchs, is a class of small worm-shaped animals. They belong to the Hemichordata, and live in secreted tubes on the ocean floor. Pterobranchia feed by filtering plankton out of the water wi ...

, a class of small tube-dwelling worms. It has smooth or faintly lineated stems, which branch into up to four equal branches at branching points. 37 specimens of ''Dalyia'' are known from the Greater

Phyllopod bed The Phyllopod bed, designated by USNM locality number 35k, is the most famous fossil-bearing member of the Burgess Shale fossil ''Lagerstätte''. It was quarried by Charles Walcott from 1911–1917 (and later named Walcott Quarry), and was ...

, where they comprise 0.07% of the community.

References

External links

* Pterobranchia Burgess Shale fossils Prehistoric hemichordate genera Cambrian genus extinctions {{paleo-invertebrate-stub