Xandarella

Xandarella
Temporal range: Cambrian stage 3
Drawing of X. spectaculum
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
(unranked): †Artiopoda
Subphylum: †Trilobitomorpha
(unranked): †Xandarellida
Genus: †Xandarella
Hou et al. 1991
Type species
Xandarella spectaculum
Hou et al. 1991

Xandarella is an extinct genus of xandarellid artiopodan known from the Cambrian of China, the type species Xandarella spectaculum was described in 1991 from the Cambrian Stage 3 aged Chengjiang Biota in China.[1] Although an additional species Xandarella mauretanica was described from the Cambrian Stage 5 Tatelt Formation in Morocco in 2017, which preserved only the ventral anatomy,[2] it is later found that is a species of trilobite Gigoutella instead.[3] Like other Xandarellids, the exoskeleton is unmineralised. The cephalon has pronounced eye slits, presumably derived from ancestral ventral stalked eyes.[4]

  1. ^ Hou, Xianguang. (1997). Arthropods of the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, southwest China. Univ.-Forl. ISBN 82-00-37693-1. OCLC 614008940.
  2. ^ Ortega-Hernández, Javier; Azizi, Abdelfattah; Hearing, Thomas W.; Harvey, Thomas H. P.; Edgecombe, Gregory D.; Hafid, Ahmid; El Hariri, Khadija (March 2017). "A xandarellid artiopodan from Morocco – a middle Cambrian link between soft-bodied euarthropod communities in North Africa and South China". Scientific Reports. 7 (1): 42616. Bibcode:2017NatSR...742616O. doi:10.1038/srep42616. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 5314411. PMID 28211461.
  3. ^ El Albani, Abderrazak; Mazurier, Arnaud; Edgecombe, Gregory D.; Azizi, Abdelfattah; El Bakhouch, Asmaa; Berks, Harry O.; Bouougri, El Hafid; Chraiki, Ibtissam; Donoghue, Philip C. J.; Fontaine, Claude; Gaines, Robert R.; Ghnahalla, Mohamed; Meunier, Alain; Trentesaux, Alain; Paterson, John R. (2024-06-28). "Rapid volcanic ash entombment reveals the 3D anatomy of Cambrian trilobites". Science. 384 (6703): 1429–1435. doi:10.1126/science.adl4540. ISSN 0036-8075.
  4. ^ Chen, Xiaohan; Ortega-Hernández, Javier; Wolfe, Joanna M.; Zhai, Dayou; Hou, Xianguang; Chen, Ailin; Mai, Huijuan; Liu, Yu (December 2019). "The appendicular morphology of Sinoburius lunaris and the evolution of the artiopodan clade Xandarellida (Euarthropoda, early Cambrian) from South China". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 19 (1): 165. doi:10.1186/s12862-019-1491-3. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 6685191. PMID 31387545.