Louisella

Louisella is a genus of worm known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. It was originally described by Charles Walcott in 1911 as a holothurian echinoderm,[1] and represents a senior synonym of Miskoia, which was originally described as an annelid.[2] 48 specimens of Louisella are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise < 0.1% of the community.[3] It has been stated to have palaeoscolecid-like sclerites,[4] though this is not in fact the case.[5]

Louisella
Temporal range: Middle Cambrian
Retouched images from Walcott's description of Miskoia, now synonymized with Louisella
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Stem group: Priapulida (?)
Class: †Archaeopriapulida
Family: †Miskoiidae
Walcott, 1911
Genus: †Louisella
Walcott, 1911
Species
  • L. pedunculata Walcott, 1911

It's also been interpreted as an annelid [6] and a sipunculan,[7] (neither on particularly compelling grounds) and a pripaulid,[8] but it is more conservatively considered to represent an ecdysozoan worm;[5] deep ecdysozoan relationships are not yet well resolved, making a more precise affiliation challenging.

References
  1. Durham, J. W. (1974). "Systematic Position of Eldonia ludwigi Walcott". Journal of Paleontology. 48 (4): 750–755. JSTOR 1303225.
  2. Walcott, C. D. (1911). "Cambrian Geology and Paleontology II. Middle Cambrian annelids". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 57 (5): 109–145 – via Wikisource.
  3. Caron, Jean-Bernard; Jackson, Donald A. (October 2006). "Taphonomy of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale". PALAIOS. 21 (5): 451–65. doi:10.2110/palo.2003.P05-070R. JSTOR 20173022.
  4. Conway Morris, S. (1997). "The cuticular structure of the 495-Myr-old type species of the fossil worm Palaeoscolex, P. piscatorum (?Priapulida)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 119: 69–82. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1997.tb00136.x.
  5. Smith, M.R. 2015: A palaeoscolecid worm from the Burgess Shale. Palaeontology 58, 973–979. doi: 10.1111/pala.12210
  6. Madsen, F.J. 1957: On Walcott’s Supposed Cambrian Holothurians. Journal of Paleontology 31, 281–282.
  7. Howell, B.F. 1962: Worms. In Moore, R. C. (ed.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology W (Miscellanea), W144–W177. Geological Society of America, New York.
  8. Conway Morris, S. 1977: Fossil priapulid worms. Special Papers in Palaeontology 20, 1–95.


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