''Pedunculotheca'' is a genus of
orthothecid hyolith known from the
Chengjiang biota
The Maotianshan Shales are a series of Early Cambrian deposits in the Chiungchussu Formation, famous for their '' Konservat Lagerstätten'', deposits known for the exceptional preservation of fossilized organisms or traces. The Maotianshan Shales ...
of China, notable for its possession of a pedunculate attachment structure likened to the brachiopod pedicle.
[
On account of this pedicle and its flattened larval shell, it is reconstructed as the earliest diverging hyolith, and a model for the ancestral morphology of this lineage of stem-group brachiopods.][
]
References
Orthothecidae
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