Wufengella
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Wufengella Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Superphylum: | Lophotrochozoa |
| Order: | Tommotiida |
| Genus: | †Wufengella Guo et al., 2022 |
| Species: | †W. bengtsoni |
| Binomial name | |
| †Wufengella bengtsoni Guo et al., 2022 | |
Wufengella is a genus of extinct camenellan "tommotiid" that lived during the Early Cambrian (Stage 3). Described in 2022, the only species Wufengella bengtsoni was discovered from the Maotianshan Shales of Chiungchussu (Qiongzhusi) Formation in Yunnan, China.[1] The fossil indicates that the animal was an armoured worm that close to the common ancestry of the phyla Brachiozoa and Bryozoa, which are collectively grouped into a clade called Lophophorata.[2]
Wufengella is known from a single specimen. The fossil was discovered by Chinese palaeontologists Jin Guo and Peiyun Cong at the Yunnan University. An almost complete fossil, parts of the anterior end are missing.[1] The location of the specimen, Chiungchussu Formation at Haikou, Kunming, Southwest China, is member of the Chengjiang Lagerstätte that is established to belong to Cambrian Stage 3 (between 521 and 514 million year ago).[3][4] The same fossil deposit had yielded worm-like lobopod Facivermis[5] and Cambrian chordate (myllokunmingiid)[6] among other animal fossils.[7][8]
The name Wufengalla is after the Wufeng Hill in Chengjiang. Wufeng is a Chinese word for "dancing/flying phoenix." The species name was given to honour Stefan Bengtson, a palaeontologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. The specimen (CJHMD00041) is maintained at the Nature Museum of Yunnan.[1] Luke A. Parry at the University of Oxford identified the specimen as a tommotiid worm, and the description was published in Current Biology.[9]
