Louisella
Extinct genus of worms
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Louisella is a genus of worm known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. It was originally described by Charles Walcott in 1911 as a holothurian echinoderm,[1] and represents a senior synonym of Miskoia, which was originally described as an annelid.[2] 48 specimens of Louisella are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise < 0.1% of the community.[3] It has been stated to have palaeoscolecid-like sclerites,[4] though this is not in fact the case.[5]
| Louisella Temporal range: | |
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| Retouched images from Walcott's description of Miskoia, now synonymized with Louisella | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Stem group: | Priapulida (?) |
| Class: | †Archaeopriapulida |
| Family: | †Miskoiidae |
| Genus: | †Louisella Walcott, 1911 |
| Species | |
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It's also been interpreted as an annelid[6] and a sipunculan,[7] (neither on particularly compelling grounds) and a pripaulid,[8] but it is more conservatively considered to represent an ecdysozoan worm;[5] deep ecdysozoan relationships are not yet well resolved, making a more precise affiliation challenging.
