Name: Arthropoda:
Xandarella spectaculum (Chengjiang Maotianshan
Shale)
Age: Early
Cambrian (~525 million years ago)
Size (25.4mm=1
inch): 15 mm long and 10 mm across on a 50 mm by 28 mm matrix
Location:
Qiongzhusi Section, Yu'anshan Member, Heilinpu Formation, Chengjiang County,
Yunnan Province, China
|  Description:
This unusual arthropod is known as Xandarella spectaculum. The species
is known from very few examples, some of which show many exquisite
details. The diversity of soft-tissue fossils is astonishing: algae,
medusiforms, sponges, priapulids, annelid like worms, echinoderms,
arthropods (including trilobites), hemichordates, chordates, and
the first agnathan fish make up just a small fraction of the total.
Numerous problematic forms areknown as well, some of which may have
represented failed attempts at diversity that did not persist to
the present day. The specimen is preserved in dorsoventral fashion,
with the antennae and many well-preserved appendages. X. spectaculum
is quite trilobite-like in appearance, but differs in the lack of
a calcified exoskeleton and different eye morphology. The taxon
is unknown outside the Chengjiang Biota.
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