|  The
Lobopodians are small marine and terrestrial animals termed colloquially
“velvet worms” or “worms with legs”. While
all Recent forms are terrestrial, most fossil Lobopodians are marine,
and are known primarily from the Cambrian. Six named genera, each
with a single species, are known from the Chengjiang Biota, making
it the  richest
source of fossils of the type on Earth. This is one of the most
striking, and quite rare; as of 2004, well less than 100 examples
were known. A large specimen was thought to be 20 mm, so
this one is truly gigantic. It possesses 23 – 25
angular sclerotized paired sclerites, each pair of which is associated
with a pair of legs. Each leg bears curved claws which are thought
to have served the creature as an adaptation to crawling on other
organisms. It is most closely related to Aysheaia from the younger
Burgess Shale, and is unknown outside of Yunnan Province. This fine
example has incredible detail, with the “myriapod”-
like legs in clear evidence.
 Description:
The discovery of the Chengjiang Biota by Hou Xian-guang in 1984
resulted in a clear window on what is known as 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 that may have represented
failed attempts at diversity whose descendents that did not persist
to the present day.
Also
see: Chengjiang Biota Fauna
List Chengjiang Fossils |
