Metaspriggina sp?
Vendor: Gold Bugs
SKU Number: SQ1412855
From the 500 million year old Middle Cambrian rocks of Utah comes this bizarre - Burgess Shale-like - fossilized, primitive chordate.
Very similar to the genus Metaspriggina, this specimen is spectacular in showing a faint midline representing a notochord (better seen in the low light photo in the gallery to the left) and two well developed, upward facing eyes.
Primitive chordates such as this specimen are likely stem-vertebrates and for summary purposes are effectively early fish-like animals. Specimen measures 2.7cm.
Full dimensions are listed below.
Vendor: Gold Bugs
SKU Number: SQ1412855
From the 500 million year old Middle Cambrian rocks of Utah comes this bizarre - Burgess Shale-like - fossilized, primitive chordate.
Very similar to the genus Metaspriggina, this specimen is spectacular in showing a faint midline representing a notochord (better seen in the low light photo in the gallery to the left) and two well developed, upward facing eyes.
Primitive chordates such as this specimen are likely stem-vertebrates and for summary purposes are effectively early fish-like animals. Specimen measures 2.7cm.
Full dimensions are listed below.
Vendor: Gold Bugs
SKU Number: SQ1412855
From the 500 million year old Middle Cambrian rocks of Utah comes this bizarre - Burgess Shale-like - fossilized, primitive chordate.
Very similar to the genus Metaspriggina, this specimen is spectacular in showing a faint midline representing a notochord (better seen in the low light photo in the gallery to the left) and two well developed, upward facing eyes.
Primitive chordates such as this specimen are likely stem-vertebrates and for summary purposes are effectively early fish-like animals. Specimen measures 2.7cm.
Full dimensions are listed below.
Additional Information
The Wheeler Shale formation was named by Charles Doolittle Walcott. The Wheeler is a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte of soft tissued organisms preserved as carbonaceous film on calcareous shale, shaley limestone, mudstone and thin flaggy limestone.
Metaspriggina is considered to represent a primitive chordate, possibly transitional between cephalochordates and the earliest vertebrates.
References:
Wheeler Shale Formation
Charles Doolittle Walcott
Metaspriggina
Metaspriggina - Evolution News
