Cambrorhytium Temporal range: Chengjiang - Burgess Shale
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Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Cnidaria |
Order: | †Conulatae |
Clade: | †Conulariida |
Genus: | †Cambrorhytium (Walcott 1908) Conway Morris and Robison, 1988[1] |
Species | |
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Cambrorhytium is an enigmatic fossil genus known from the Latham Shale (California),[2] and the Chengjiang (China) and Burgess Shale (Canadian rockies) lagerstätte.[3] 350 specimens of Cambrorhytium are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.7% of the community.[4]
Its name is from the Latin rhytium, drinking horn.[1]
The fossil is conical, with iterated linear markings on its walls, parallel to its base. Its wall is thin, and it lacks the keel that is distinctive of hyoliths.[2]
It has been interpreted as a cnidarian polyp, with the interpretation suggesting that the animal lived in the tube and extended tentacles (of which no trace has been found) from the flat aperture.[5] This is supported by similarities to Palaeoconotuba.[6] The other possible, but probably unlikely, affinity is with the hyoliths.[2]
Its similarity with the Lower Cambrian species Torellelloides giganteum may indicate a close relationship.[1] Cambrorhytium has also been compared to the fossil Archotuba[5] and Sphenothallus.[7]
C. elongatum has been described to contain an alimentary canal in a single Chinese specimen.[8]
C. major was originally described as a member of the hyolith genus Orthotheca.[9]
C. fragilis was originally included by Charles D. Walcott in the genus Selkirkia,[10][11] – a taxonomy that was retained by later workers[12][13] until finally questioned[14] and redescribed[1] as Cambrorhytium in the eighties.