Molaria
| Molaria Temporal range:
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|---|---|
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| M. spinifera in dorsal and lateral views from a plate in Walcott, 1912 | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| (unranked): | †Artiopoda |
| Genus: | †Molaria Walcott, 1912 [1] |
| Type species | |
| Molaria spinifera Walcott, 1912
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| Other species | |
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Molaria steini Peel, 2017 | |
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Molaria is a genus of Cambrian arthropod, the type species M. spinifera is known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. Template:Gpb abundance A second species M. steini was described from the Sirius Passet in Greenland in 2017.[2]
The body of Molaria consisted of a head shield (cephalon), a trunk consisting of eight sections (tergites), and a telson, which included a short ventral spine and a long posterior spine. Three pairs of legs were beneath the cephalon and another eight pairs were attached to the trunk. Eyes were lacking, but a pair of short antennae was present on the cephalon. Specimens of Molaria ranged from 8 to 26 mm in length from cephalon to telson, with the posterior spine slightly longer than the body length.[3] Molaria was superficially similar to Habelia, another Burgess Shale arthropod with a long tail spine, but which possessed 12 trunk tergites.[3] It is currently considered a member of Artiopoda.[2]
The genus name derives from "Molar", the name of a mountain peak east of the Valley of the Ten Peaks in Alberta, Canada.[1]
References
- ^ a b Walcott, C. D. (1912). "Middle Cambrian Branchiopoda, Malacostraca, Trilobita and Merostomata". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 57: 145–228.
- ^ a b Peel, J.S. (2017-06-30). "Molaria (Euarthropoda) from the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 3) of North Greenland". Bulletin of Geosciences: 133–142. doi:10.3140/bull.geosci.1658. ISSN 1802-8225.
- ^ a b Whittington, H. B. (1981). "Rare Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 292 (1060): 329–357. Bibcode:1981RSPTB.292..329W. doi:10.1098/rstb.1981.0033.
External links
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