''Sialomorpha dominicana'', also known as the mold pig, is a

panarthropod Panarthropoda is a clade comprising the greatest diversity of animal groups. It contains the extant phyla Arthropoda (Euarthropoda), Tardigrada (water bears) and Onychophora (velvet worms), although the precise relationships among these remained ...

genus of uncertain affinities discovered in 30-million year old

Dominican amber Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic derived from resin of the extinct tree '' Hymenaea protera''. Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being nearly always transparent, and it has a higher number of fossil in ...

by George Poinar at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate degree programs and a variety of graduate and doctor ...

and Diane R. Nelson at East Tennessee University. It was placed in a new genus and family (Sialomorphidae) unto itself, and appears to represent a new phylum. ''S. dominicana'' shares some resemblance to

tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them . In 1776, th ...

s and

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...

s. It is about 100 μm long and grew by molting its exoskeleton. It was probably an omnivore, feeding on minute invertebrates and fungi, including mold.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q70464160, from2=Q70464040, from3=Q70464216 Cenozoic invertebrates Monotypic prehistoric protostome genera Fossil taxa described in 2019 Enigmatic protostome taxa Dominican amber