Kuamaia

Kuamaia
Temporal range: Cambrian Stage 3
Drawing of Kuamaia lata
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
(unranked): Artiopoda
Subphylum: Trilobitomorpha
Subclass: Conciliterga
Genus: Kuamaia
Hou 1987
Species
  • Kuamaia lata Hou 1987
  • Kuamaia muricata Hou and Bergström 1997

Kuamaia is an extinct genus of artiopodan in the phylum Arthropoda.[1][2] Fossils of the type species K. lata were discovered in the Chengjiang biota. The other species in the genus,K. muricata has also been identified there, but neither species has been found elsewhere.[3]

Kuamaia lata was a benthic arthropod[3][4] and a mobile hunter and scavenger.[4] A spiny section on K. lata's legs is presumed to have allowed it to tear apart food.[3]

  1. ^ Stein, Martin; Budd, Graham E; Peel, John S; Harper, David AT (2013-05-11). "Arthroaspis n. gen., a common element of the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte (Cambrian, North Greenland), sheds light on trilobite ancestry". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 13: 99. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-13-99. PMC 3662621. PMID 23663519.
  2. ^ "Fossilworks: Kuamaia lata". fossilworks.org. Fossilworks. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
  3. ^ a b c The Cambrian fossils of Chengjiang, China : the flowering of early animal life. Hou, Xianguang. (Second ed.). Chichester, West Sussex. 8 March 2017. ISBN 978-1-118-89631-0. OCLC 970396735.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ^ a b Zhao, Fangchen; Caron, Jean-Bernard; Bottjer, David J.; Hu, Shixue; Yin, Zongjun; Zhu, Maoyan (2014). "Diversity and species abundance patterns of the Early Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota from China". Paleobiology. 40 (1): 50–69. doi:10.1666/12056. ISSN 0094-8373. JSTOR 44017866. S2CID 131526964.