Volborthella

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Volborthella
Temporal range: Early Cambrian[1]
Glauconitic sandstone
with Volborthella fossils, from Stadtmuseum Berlin.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Agmata (?)
Family: Salterellidae
Genus: Volborthella
Schmidt, 1888[2]
Species:
V. tenuis
Binomial name
Volborthella tenuis
Schmidt, 1888[2]
Synonyms[3][4][5]
Genus
  • Campitius Firby & Durham, 1974
Species
  • Campitius titanius Firby & Dunham, 1974
  • Volborthella conica Schindewolf, 1934

Volborthella is an animal of uncertain classification, whose fossils pre-date 530 million years ago. It has been considered for a period a cephalopod.

septa as those of fossil shelled cephalopods and the living Nautilus are.[5] This illusion was a result of the laminated texture of the organisms' tests.[7] Therefore, Volborthella’s classification is now uncertain.[1]
It has been speculated that it may in fact represent a
Halwaxiids, lobopods and echinoderms, demonstrate the diversity of organisms which may produce a scleritome of this nature.[7] The related Campitius was originally suggested to be part of a radula rather than a scleritome,[9] but is now considered a synonym of Volborthella.[3]

Volborthella is widespread, and a useful biostratigraphic indicator;

Lower Cambrian rocks, appearing before the trilobites and co-existing with them for some time.[1]

Volborthella has been described as a 'failed attempt in mineralisation'; it constructed its wall by agglutinating grains of sediment, much like some

taphonomic hints that some form of lightly mineralised sheath may have enclosed its agglutinated shell.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Hagadorn, J.W.; Waggoner, B.M. (2002). "The Early Cambrian problematic fossil Volborthella: New insights from the Basin and Range". In Corsetti, F.A. (ed.). Proterozoic-Cambrian of the Great Basin and Beyond, Pacific Section SEPM Book 93 (PDF). SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology). pp. 135–150. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
  2. ^ a b Schmidt, F. (1888). "Über eine neuentdeckte untercambrische Fauna in Estland". Mémoires de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg. 7. 36 (2): 1–27, 2 pls.
  3. ^ .
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  8. ^ Firby, J. B.; Durham, J. W. (1 November 1974). "Molluscan Radula from Earliest Cambrian". Journal of Paleontology. 48 (6): 1109–1338.