''Louisella'' is a genus of worm known 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 ...

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 ...

. It was originally described by Charles Walcott in 1911 as a holothurian echinoderm, and represents a senior synonym of ''Miskoia'', which was originally described as an annelid. 48 specimens of ''Louisella'' 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 < 0.1% of the community. It has been stated to have palaeoscolecid-like sclerites, though this is not in fact the case.Smith, M.R. 2015: A palaeoscolecid worm from the Burgess Shale. Palaeontology 58, 973–979. It's also been interpreted as an annelid and a sipunculan, (neither on particularly compelling grounds) and a pripaulid,Conway Morris, S. 1977: Fossil priapulid worms. Special Papers in Palaeontology 20, 1–95. but it is more conservatively considered to represent an ecdysozoan worm; deep ecdysozoan relationships are not yet well resolved, making a more precise affiliation challenging.

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* Burgess Shale fossils Burgess Shale animals Prehistoric protostome genera Cambrian genus extinctions Priapulida {{cambrian-animal-stub