Life restoration of Nectocaris
Nectocaris is a genus of uncertain affinity from the Cambrian Period of Canada, China, and Australia.
Description[]
Nectocaris has a flattened body with fleshy fins running along each side. The head possessed two stalked eyes, a pair of tentacles, and a funnel that opened up on the underside of the body.[1]
Classification[]
Fossil specimen of Nectocaris
The classification and taxonomy of Nectocaris is uncertain, and various identities for the genus have been put forth since its discovery, including a cephalopod or a coeloid.[2] There is one species, N. pteryx.
History[]
Although Charles Doolittle Walcott had first photographed specimens of Nectocaris in the 1910s, it was not until 1976 that it was described by Simon Conway Morris.[3] The Italian paleontologist Alberto Simonetta interpreted the animal as a primitive chordate, and reconstructed it with a body shape somewhat similar to that of Pikaia.[4] In 2010, Martin Smith and Jean-Bernard Caron reexamined the fossil and found it to be more like that of a primitive cephalopod. This would move the origin of cephalopods back about 20 million years to the Cambrian explosion.[5]
References[]
- ↑ 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. edit
- ↑ Runnegar, B. (2011). "Once again: Is Nectocaris pteryx a stem-group cephalopod?". Lethaia 44 (4): 373. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.2011.00296.x. edit
- ↑ Morris, S.C. (1976). " Nectocaris pteryx, a new organism from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Monatshefte 12: 703–713.
- ↑ Simonetta, A.M. (1988). "Is Nectocaris pteryx a chordate?". Bollettino di Zoologia 55 (1–2): 63–68. doi:10.1080/11250008809386601.
- ↑ 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. edit