''Protechiurus edmondsi'' is a species of fossil animal from the

Ediacaran The Ediacaran Period ( ) is a geological period that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 538.8 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and th ...

Nama group of Namibia. It was initially interpreted as an echiurid worm. It has been placed as a "vendobiont", on the hypothesis that the Edicarian fauna represent a distinct phylum. It has also been suggested that it may be an

ecdysozoa Ecdysozoa () is a group of protostome animals, including Arthropoda (insects, chelicerata, crustaceans, and myriapods), Nematoda, and several smaller phyla. They were first defined by Aguinaldo ''et al.'' in 1997, based mainly on phylogenetic tr ...

n. The identity of ''P. edmondsi'' identity is still unclear, as originally,

Martin Glaessner Martin Fritz Glaessner AM (25 December 1906 – 23 November 1989) was a geologist and palaeontologist. Born and educated in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he spent the majority of his life in working for geoscientific institutes in Austria, Russia ...

put it into the worm phylum Echiura, family Echiuridae. Although Runnegar though that it was actually a Dubiofossil, although other palaeontologists have suggested that it may be a Proto- Chordate.

References

Ediacaran life Ediacaran first appearances Enigmatic animal taxa Fossils of Namibia {{Ediacaran-stub

See also

References