Misfit fossil

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by BBC

A strange 525 million-year-old fossil creature is baffling scientists because it does not fit neatly into any existing animal groups.

The animal, from the early Cambrian Period, might have belonged to a now extinct mollusc-like phylum, academics from America and China say...

The trouble is the animal, named Vetustodermis planus, did not possess a set of features, or characters, which placed it clearly within any known group.

When it was first described in 1979, Vetustodermis was included in the annelid category. Later researchers argued against this classification, saying it was, in fact, either an arthropod or a mollusc....

More....

Is this one of those missing links in the fossil record?

Thanks to Buffy for the lead on this story

[infamous]

Originally Posted by C1ay

Is this one of those missing links in the fossil record?

Curious little creature indeed, if it does not fit into either the molluscs, annelids, or arthropods, what the heck is it? Maybe we have a new phylum on the way?

[OpenMind5]

Looks like a slug...

Just my opion...LOl

Op5

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by infamous

...Maybe we have a new phylum on the way?

That would be my take as well. We have lost about 70% of the phyla that erupted after the Cambrian explosion (falling form about 100 to about 30). Losing one more does not change much.

You would have to squint pretty hard to make this a missing link between one of the 3 pre Cambrian phyla and one of the 100 post Cambrian phyla, unless there were specific phenotypic elements that were transitional between an earlier and a later phylum. I don't think anything like that shows up here.

[nkt]

I'd say it was the thing out of Tremors, or perhaps Star Trek II. Any idea what size is it/was?

With DNA it would be easy to find out, but with a single fossil, it's going to be very hard. Genetic studies keep showing us weird evolutionary changes that aren't clear even with live specimens to study, and correcting observations that still appear correct from that data.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by nkt

Any idea what size is it/was?

From the linked article:

Originally Posted by BBC

The 5-10cm-long (2-4 inch) fossil, from Anning in China, had a flattened body and horizontal fins which, researchers think, could have been used to support it as it moved along the sea floor. It also had well developed senses, including a pair of eyes on stalks.

[alxian]

yep... eden must have been quite a busy place.

looks like a mix between a slug and a snail, an early shrimp maybe?

also, the game Spore will allow people to create such animals.. wouldn't it be weird if even the strangest creatures people come up with have analogues in nature?

[nkt]

So they don't know either? 5 to 10 cm long? How can they be that unsure about the size of a fossil?

Remember the coelacanth, though. These things are probably still swimming around somewhere under the sea.

[alxian]

coelacanths are awesome

amazing how science ignores what people talk about, the people around the waters where the animals were found claimed to have seen them but those claims were dismissed.

in future i hope science listens more carefully to such stories.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by nkt

So they don't know either? 5 to 10 cm long? How can they be that unsure about the size of a fossil?

Why do you think they're unsure? Could it be that small one's were about 5cm and large one's were about 10cm? Many animals have a range of size.