Pollingeria
| Pollingeria Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Several specimens | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Clade: | Bilateria |
| Genus: | †Pollingeria Walcott, 1911 |
| Type species | |
| †Pollingeria grandis Walcott, 1911 | |
Pollingeria is a problematic genus of animals of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. 3080 specimens of Pollingeria are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 5.85% of the community.[1]
Description
[edit]Pollingeria are short worms, which are generally elongated and relatively thin, less than an inch long. Their shape varies widely from specimen to specimen.
In a single instance, individuals are grouped together.[2]
Affinity
[edit]The classification of Pollingeria is highly problematic: there is no obvious similarity to any organism, living or extinct. Charles Doolittle Walcott, who described the organism in 1911, suggested that it ranked among the annelid polychaete worms, considering the "chips" to represent chaetae.
More recently, Simon Conway Morris and Derek Briggs suggested that the fossils could each represent an entire organism.
References
[edit]- ^ Caron, Jean-Bernard; Jackson, Donald A. (October 2006). "Taphonomy of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale". PALAIOS. 21 (5): 451–65. Bibcode:2006Palai..21..451C. doi:10.2110/palo.2003.P05-070R. JSTOR 20173022. S2CID 53646959.
- ^ Conway Morris, S. (1979). "The Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) Fauna". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 10: 327–349. doi:10.1146/annurev.es.10.110179.001551.
External links
[edit]- "Pollingeria grandis". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Virtual Museum of Canada. 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12.
- Photographs of fossils[permanent dead link]
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