Vetustovermis

Vetustovermis planus
Temporal range: Cambrian Stage 3–Middle Cambrian
A reconstruction of the closely related species Nectocaris pteryx. The single specimen of Vetustovermis is larger in size than Nectocaris, but it has been postulated that its anatomy was otherwise comparable.[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca (?)
Stem-group: Cephalopoda (?)
Family: †Nectocarididae
Genus: †Vetustovermis
Species: † V. planus
Binomial name
Vetustovermis planus
Glaessner, 1979
Synonyms
  • ?Petalilium Luo & Hu 1999 (possibly a junior synonym)

Vetustovermis (from Latin: "very old worm")[2] is a soft-bodied middle Cambrian animal, possibly a cephalopod. The single reported fossil specimen is from the South Australian Emu Bay shale. It is probably a junior synonym of Nectocaris pteryx.[3]

The original description of Vetustovermis hedged its bets regarding classification, but tentatively highlighted some similarities with the annelid worms.[2] It was later considered an arthropod,[4] and in 2010 Smith and Caron, agreeing that Petalilium was at least a close relative of Vetustovermis (but that treating it as a synonym was premature, given the poor preservation of the Vetustovermis type), placed it with Nectocaris in the clade Nectocarididae.[1]

Early press reports misspelled the genus name as Vetustodermis.

References

  1. 1 2 Smith, M. R.; Caron, J. B. (2010). "Primitive soft-bodied cephalopods from the Cambrian". Nature 465 (7297): 469–472. Bibcode:2010Natur.465..469S. doi:10.1038/nature09068. PMID 20505727.
  2. 1 2 Glaessner, M. F. (1979). "Lower Cambrian Crustacea and annelid worms from Kangaroo Island, South Australia". Alcheringa: an Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 3: 21–29. doi:10.1080/03115517908565437.
  3. ↑ Smith, M. R. (2013). "Nectocaridid ecology, diversity and affinity: early origin of a cephalopod-like body plan". Paleobiology 39 (2): 291–321. doi:10.1666/12029.
  4. ↑ Luo H.-L, Hu S.-X, Chen L.-Z. Yunnan Science & Technology Press; Kunming, China: 1999. Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna from Kunming region, China.

External links

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