''Thaumaptilon'' is a fossil genus of animals from the middle

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ag ...

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 ...

which some authors have compared to members of the

Ediacaran biota The Ediacaran (; formerly Vendian) biota is a taxonomic period classification that consists of all life forms that were present on Earth during the Ediacaran Period (). These were composed of enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessi ...

, generally believed to have disappeared at the start of the Cambrian, . 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

zooid A zooid or zoöid is a single animal that is part of a colonial animal. This lifestyle has been adopted by animals from separate unrelated taxa. Zooids are multicellular; their structure is similar to that of other solitary animals. The zooid ...

s. ''Thaumaptilon'' is considered important due to its resemblance to some

Ediacaran The Ediacaran Period ( ) is a geological period that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 538.8 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and t ...

s; it was believed to be a relative of forms such as ''

Charnia ''Charnia'' is a genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture (thus exhibiting glide reflection, or opposite isometry). T ...

''. Forms related to ''Charnia'' were once believed to be related to sea-pens (pennatulacean cnidarians), although this hypothesis has been questioned based on several lines of evidence. The name ''Thaumaptilon'' is said to be derived from the Greek ''thauma'', "wonderful", + , "soft feather". In ancient Greek, ''thauma'' (θαῦμα) however means "wonder".Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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* * http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/thaumaptilon.html Burgess Shale fossils Ediacaran life Prehistoric cnidarian genera {{cambrian-animal-stub Cambrian genus extinctions

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