Molaria

Molaria
Temporal range: Burgess Shale
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Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Genus: Molaria
Walcott, 1912 [1]
Species: M. spinifera

Molaria spinifera is a species of chelicerate-like arthropod known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. 144 specimens of Molaria are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.27% of the community.[2]

The body of Molaria consisted of a head shield (cephalon), a trunk consisting of eight sections (tergites), and a telson, which included a short ventral spine and a long posterior spine. Three pairs of legs were beneath the cephalon and another eight pair were attached to the trunk. Eyes were lacking, but a pair of short antennae was present on the cephalon. Specimens of Molaria ranged from 8 to 26 mm in length from cephalon to telson, with the posterior spine slightly longer than the body length.[3] Molaria was superficially similar to Habelia, another Burgess Shale arthropod with a long tail spine, but which possessed 12 trunk tergites.[3]

The genus name derives from "Molar", the name of a mountain peak east of the Valley of the Ten Peaks in Alberta, Canada.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Walcott, C. D. (1912). "Middle Cambrian Branchiopoda, Malacostraca, Trilobita and Merostomata". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 57: 145–228.
  2. ↑ Caron, Jean-Bernard; Jackson, Donald A. (October 2006). "Taphonomy of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale". PALAIOS. 21 (5): 451–65. doi:10.2110/palo.2003.P05-070R. JSTOR 20173022.
  3. 1 2 Whittington, H. B. (1981). "Rare Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 292 (1060): 329–357. doi:10.1098/rstb.1981.0033.


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