| Australimicola Temporal range: | |
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| Life restoration | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | † Artiopoda |
| (unranked): | † Protosutura |
| Genus: | † Australimicola Paterson, García-Bellido & Edgecombe, 2012 [1] |
| Species: | †A. spriggi |
| Binomial name | |
| †Australimicola spriggi Paterson et al., 2012 [1] | |
Australimicola is a genus of extinct marine arthropods from the Cambrian Stage 4 aged Emu Bay Shale of South Australia with a single species, A. spriggi.
Australimicola had an elongate (maximum width only 40-50% of the total length), oval shaped body, reaching 2–2.7 centimetres (0.79–1.06 in) in length, made up of 27 tergites (segments), which had blunt ends. The semicircular headshield, which is around 40% as long as wide, only made up about 10% of the body length, and they have no visible expression of eyes on the top (dorsal) side of the shield. The head bore a pair of segmented antennae, with these segments being about as wide as long. The head also bore a shield-shaped hypostome on the underside. A narrow gut tract ran along the length of the body, with midgut glands also being present. The endopods (leg-like walking limbs), were attached with one pair to each body segment/tergite, and tapered towards their ends. These endopod limbs were relatively short, only reaching 50% of the body width. The body ended with a small pygidium with a pair of long flat divergent spines. [2]
Australimicola is placed within Artiopoda, the broader group which includes trilobites and their close relatives. In its original description it was placed in Conciliterga, [2] but later studies placed it in Protosutura alongside Zhiwenia and Acanthomeridion from the Cambrian of China. [3]
Cladogram following Wu et al. (2025). [4]
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