Leptomitus Cambrian Sponge Fossil

Description: This is a large example of the demosponge Leptomitus bellilineata, whose species name is derived from the beautiful lines visible here. The genus was first described from material collected in Utah, and is also known from the roughly contemporary Burgess Shale of British Columbia and the somewhat older Chengjiang Biota of China. The only flaw to this excellent example is a repaired matrix crack on the large half of the matrix. I have included a restoration of the similar Paraleptomitella from Chengjiang.