Thanks for this chaps, very interesting indeed.
On first impressions it looks very much to me like an anomalocarid. I attach a little comparison diagram to show what I mean, perhaps though this new creature could have been a little more gelatinous than its better known cousins, especially around the claw end. There doesn't seem to be any segmentation on the appendages on the reconstruction, but who knows.
Not sure about this 'shoe-horning' into existing phyla business in the report, or the call to create a new phylum for it (SJ Gould would be proud); should one even expect this very ancient animal to fit a current phylum? I believe that there is a theory that in the early Cambrian phyla as we know them were yet to be established and that many creatures were in the 'melting-pot' between what would later emerge as the mollusca, the arthropoda, chordata etc. Similar confused accusations were once thrown at the near contemporary
Anomalocaris, but I think that it is now thought by most researchers to be some form of arthropod. Certainly by the time of the Burgess Shales modern phyla had been set, but perhaps even this new
Vetustodermis could have been a descendant of a muddled lineage from an even earlier time?
It'll be very interesting to read the publication if we can track it down.
Very cool indeed.
Fujisawas Sake said:
But remember Phil, due to Intelligent Design, passing this link to you may label me an enemy of the state.
John,
You ARE an enemy of the state. We just keep it to ourselves on TONMO!
Phil
