Haikouella Lanceolata, Chlupáč Museum, Prague on:
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''Haikouella'' is an Abstract
/ref> Still, there are anatomical differences from ''Yunnanozoon'', including a larger stomach and smaller (0.1 mm) pharyngeal teeth. ''Haikouella'' does not have bones or a movable jaw, but it otherwise resembles vertebrates. ''Haikouichthys'' and ''Myllokunmingia'', which seem to share significant fish-like characters, have been found in the same beds. Suspected hemichordates are also known from these deposits as well as from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Other than possible fish scales/plates from the Upper Cambrian of Wyoming, these Chinese fish-like chordates are one of the only known pre-Ordovician craniates.
''Haikouella'' is known from 305 specimens mostly from a single bed in the Maotianshan Shales. The animal is 20 to 30 mm (40 mm max) in length and has a head, gills, brain, notochord, well developed musculature, heart and circulatory system. It has a bent caudal projection of the notochord that might be a primitive tail fin. It might have a pair of lateral eyes. Very small (0.1 mm) structures that are probably pharyngeal teeth are present in the body cavity. A few specimens display dorsal and ventral fins.
There are two known species, ''H. lanceolata'' and the type species, and ''H. jianshanensis''.
Another description and large Haikouella mass mortality image
Chordates Cambrian chordates Maotianshan shales fossils Enigmatic deuterostome taxa Prehistoric chordate genera {{chordate-stub Cambrian genus extinctions
agnathan
Agnatha (, Ancient Greek 'without jaws') is an infraphylum of jawless fish in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, consisting of both present (cyclostomes) and extinct (conodonts and ostracoderms) species. Among recent animals, cyclostomes ...
chordate from the Lower Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...
Maotianshan Shales of Chengjiang County in Yunnan Province, China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. An analysis in 2015 placed ''Haikouella'' as a junior synonym
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently.
* In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...
of '' Yunnanozoon,'' another Maotianshan shale Cambrian chordate''.''
It is similar to the form ''Yunnanozoon'', which is possibly a hemichordate./ref> Still, there are anatomical differences from ''Yunnanozoon'', including a larger stomach and smaller (0.1 mm) pharyngeal teeth. ''Haikouella'' does not have bones or a movable jaw, but it otherwise resembles vertebrates. ''Haikouichthys'' and ''Myllokunmingia'', which seem to share significant fish-like characters, have been found in the same beds. Suspected hemichordates are also known from these deposits as well as from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Other than possible fish scales/plates from the Upper Cambrian of Wyoming, these Chinese fish-like chordates are one of the only known pre-Ordovician craniates.
''Haikouella'' is known from 305 specimens mostly from a single bed in the Maotianshan Shales. The animal is 20 to 30 mm (40 mm max) in length and has a head, gills, brain, notochord, well developed musculature, heart and circulatory system. It has a bent caudal projection of the notochord that might be a primitive tail fin. It might have a pair of lateral eyes. Very small (0.1 mm) structures that are probably pharyngeal teeth are present in the body cavity. A few specimens display dorsal and ventral fins.
There are two known species, ''H. lanceolata'' and the type species, and ''H. jianshanensis''.
References
External links
Another description and large Haikouella mass mortality image
Chordates Cambrian chordates Maotianshan shales fossils Enigmatic deuterostome taxa Prehistoric chordate genera {{chordate-stub Cambrian genus extinctions