Jianfengia is an extinct genus of Middle Cambrian (Atdabanian) megacheiran arthropod found in the Maotianshan Shale Lagerstätte of China. It contains the single species Jianfengia multisegmentalis.[1] The body is extremely elongated, though the animal itself was relatively small at less than 4 centimetres (1.6 in) in length.[2] The head has a pair of stalked eyes, a hypostome/labrum complex, a pair of great appendages with five podomeres, and four pairs of biramous limbs.[3] The maximum known number of trunk segments is 27, though most known specimens have 20, which are associated with pairs of biramous appendages, and the body ends with a telson spine. It has been placed as a member of the family Jiangfengiidae, alongside Fortiforceps and Sklerolibyon as well as possibly Parapeytoia.[2]

Jianfengia
Temporal range: Cambrian Stage 3 (Atdabanian)
~521–514 Ma
Specimen NIGPAS 169957 from Mafang (scale bar: 1 mm)
Diagram in lateral view
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Megacheira
Family: Jianfengiidae
Genus: Jianfengia
Hou, 1987
Species:
J. multisegmentalis
Binomial name
Jianfengia multisegmentalis
Hou, 1987
Life restoration

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Jianfengia in the Paleobiology Database
  2. ^ a b Aria, Cédric; Zhao, Fangchen; Zeng, Han; Guo, Jin; Zhu, Maoyan (December 2020). "Fossils from South China redefine the ancestral euarthropod body plan". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 20 (1): 4. doi:10.1186/s12862-019-1560-7. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 6950928. PMID 31914921.
  3. ^ Zhang, Xilin; Liu, Yu; O'Flynn, Robert J.; Schmidt, Michel; Melzer, Roland R.; Hou, Xianguang; Mai, Huijuan; Guo, Jin; Yu, Mengxiao; Ortega‐Hernández, Javier (September 2022). Zhang, Xi‐Guang (ed.). "Ventral organization of Jianfengia multisegmentalis Hou, and its implications for the head segmentation of megacheirans". Palaeontology. 65 (5). doi:10.1111/pala.12624. ISSN 0031-0239. S2CID 252954394.