''Erytholus'' is a form genus for problematic fossils of Cambrian age in South Australia. It has been of special interest because of its morphological similarity with the Ediacaran fossil ''

Ventogyrus ''Ventogyrus'' is an Ediacaran fossil found in the White Sea-Arkhangelsk region of Russia. It was first discovered in the Teska member of the Ust'-Pinega formation, in a thick lens of sandstone, originally sand dumped by storm waves that cut a d ...

'', and may have been a late surviving

vendobiont Vendobionts or Vendozoans (Vendobionta) are a proposed very high-level, extinct clade of benthic organisms that made up of the majority of the organisms that were part of the Ediacaran biota. It is a hypothetical group and at the same time, i ...

. It could be a

slime mold Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic mul ...

Description

''Erytholus'' is a globose, chambered fossil, with associated vertical tubular structures. Its preservation in sandstone is similar to the

Ediacaran type preservation Ediacaran type preservation relates to the dominant preservational mode in the Ediacaran period, where Ediacaran organisms were preserved as casts on the surface of microbial mats. Exceptional preservation All but the smallest fraction of the ...

of the vendobiont ''

''. It is found at depths of within paleosols. Its affinities are uncertain, although it bears a general resemblance to

truffles A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Pe ...

References

Cambrian fossil record Controversial taxa {{Paleo-biota-stub