''Mackenzia'' is an elongated bag-like animal known from the Middle

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 ...

Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest foss ...

. It attached directly to hard surfaces, such as brachiopod shells. 14 specimens of ''Mackenzia'' are known from the Greater

Phyllopod bed The Phyllopod bed, designated by USNM locality number 35k, is the most famous fossil-bearing member of the Burgess Shale fossil ''Lagerstätte''. It was quarried by Charles Walcott from 1911–1917 (and later named Walcott Quarry), and was t ...

, where they comprise <0.1% of the community. ''Mackenzia'' was originally described by Charles Walcott in 1911 as a holothurian echinoderm. Later, ''Mackenzia'' is thought to be a cnidarian and appears most similar to modern sea anemones.

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* Burgess Shale fossils Actiniaria Burgess Shale animals Prehistoric Hexacorallia genera Fossil taxa described in 1911 {{paleo-hexacorallia-stub Cambrian genus extinctions