Bomakellia kelleri
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Bomakellia kelleri was an 8 to 9.5 centimeter long Edicaran organism that lived in the ocean at what is now the shores of the White Sea of Russia. It has a long body lined with oval-shaped appendages, giving it a tri-lobed appearance, and has a rounded, vaguely triangular shield on one end (identified as a cephalon by some, a holdfast by others).
Some Precambrian experts suggest that it, like the Edicarans Charnia and Rangea, was a colonial cnidarian, much in the manner of a modern-day sea pen.
Most experts, however, note its extreme similarity to the Edicarans "Flinders soft-bodied trilobite," and Spriggina, and postulate that it was some sort of primitive arthropod, possibly a precursor to trilobites.
A scientist by the name of B. M. Waggoner studied the only fossil specimen of B. kelleri, and suggested that it was a primitive anomalocarid, the earliest known species, in fact. In an article written for Systematic Biology, Waggoner went on to identify ridges in the cephalon as being eyes, making this creature the earliest known animal with sight. However, Mark McMenamin, in his book, The Garden of Ediacara, mentions that no one besides Waggoner has been able to find these "eye-ridges."
External Links
- Sam Gon's Origins of Trilobites
References
- B. M. Waggoner, "Phylogenic Hypotheses of the Relationships of Arthropods to Precambrian and Cambrian Problematic Fossil Taxa," Systematic Biology 45 (1996):280-293
- McMenamin, Mark A. S. The Garden of Ediacara New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-231-10559-2
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