Shishania

Shishania; Temporal range: Early Cambrian (Stage 4), ~514–509 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Genus:	†Shishania; Zhang et al., 2024
Species
	S. aculeata Zhang et al., 2024;

Shishania is a genus of stem-group mollusc from the Cambrian period. It contains a single species, Shishania aculeata. Shishania specimens come from the Wulongqing Formation in China, and date back to around 514 to 509 million years ago. Shishania was a flattened, bilaterally symmetrical slug-like animal with a muscular foot. It had no shell, but was covered in hollow chitinous spines. These sclerites provide a stepping stone between the solid chaetae-like chitinous sclerites of Wiwaxia and the partially hollow, biomineralized sclerites of aculiferan molluscs. This suggests the mollusc ancestor was covered in hollow chitinous sclerites that shared a common origin with annelid chaetae.^[1]

References

^ Zhang, Guangxu; Parry, Luke A.; Vinther, Jakob; Ma, Xiaoya (2 August 2024). "A Cambrian spiny stem mollusk and the deep homology of lophotrochozoan scleritomes". Science. 385 (6708): 528–532. doi:10.1126/science.ado0059. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 39088612.

[1] Zhang, Guangxu; Parry, Luke A.; Vinther, Jakob; Ma, Xiaoya (2 August 2024). "A Cambrian spiny stem mollusk and the deep homology of lophotrochozoan scleritomes". Science. 385 (6708): 528–532. doi:10.1126/science.ado0059. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 39088612.

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