Tanglangia
longicaudata
Phylum Arthropoda
Geological
Time: Early Cambrian, (~525 million years ago)
Size (25.4
mm = 1 inch): 15 mm long on a 20 mm by 32 mm matrix
Fossil
Site: Chengjiang Maotianshan Shale, Quiongzhusi Section, Yu’anshan
Member, Heilinpu Formation, Mafang Village, Haikou County, Kunming, Yunnan
Province, China
Code: CJF681
Price: $450.00
Description:
This unusual arthropod is known as Tanglangia longicaudata. With
the discovery of the Chengjiang Biota by Hou Xian-guang in 1984,
the world became aware of a great storehouse of material from early
in the Cambrian Explosion. The diversity of soft-tissue fossils
is astonishing: algae, medusiforms, sponges, priapulids, annelid-like
worms, echinoderms, arthropods (including trilobites), hemichordates,
chordates, and the first agnathan fish make up just a small fraction
of the total. Numerous problematic forms are known as well, some
of which may have represented failed attempts at diversity that
did not persist to the present
day.
The
specimen is a member of the “great appendage arthropods”
known as the opabinids after Opabinia from the Burgess Shale Fauna.
It is most closely allied with Jianfengia, the most primitive of
the opabinids. It differs primarily in having fewer segments and
a long telson. The largest complete examples can reach 35 mm, with
the telson in some cases being as long as the abdomen. The taxon
is unknown outside the Chengjiang Biota. This one is incomplete,
showing only the posterior half of this unusual arthropod; a complete
specimen would have 13 body segments. This is the first such example
I have been able to secure.
Also
see: Chengjiang
Biota Fauna List Chengjiang
Fossils
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