Hyoliths are animals with small conical shells, known from fossils from the Palaeozoic era. They are at least considered as being lophotrochozoan, and possibly being lophophorates, a group which includes the brachiopods, while others consider them as being basal lophotrochozoans, or even molluscs.
Vetulicolia is a clade of bilaterian animals encompassing several extinct species belonging to the Cambrian period. The clade was created by Degan Shu and his research team in 2001, and named after Vetulicola cuneata, the first species of the phylum described in 1987.
The Maotianshan Shales (帽天山页岩) are a series of Early Cambrian sedimentary deposits in the Chiungchussu Formation, famous for their Konservat Lagerstätten, deposits known for the exceptional preservation of fossilized organisms or traces. The Maotianshan Shales form one of some forty Cambrian fossil locations worldwide exhibiting exquisite preservation of rarely preserved, non-mineralized soft tissue, comparable to the fossils of the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada. They take their name from Maotianshan Hill in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province, China.
Nectocaris is a genus of squid-like animal of controversial affinities known from the Cambrian period. The initial fossils were described from the Burgess Shale of Canada. Other similar remains possibly referrable to the genus are known from the Emu Bay Shale of Australia and Chengjiang Biota of China.
Wiwaxia is a genus of soft-bodied animals that were covered in carbonaceous scales and spines that protected it from predators. Wiwaxia fossils—mainly isolated scales, but sometimes complete, articulated fossils—are known from early Cambrian and middle Cambrian fossil deposits across the globe. The living animal would have measured up to 5 centimetres (2 in) when fully grown, although a range of juvenile specimens are known, the smallest being 2 millimetres (0.08 in) long.
The Kaili Formation(凯里組) is a stratigraphic formation which was deposited during the Lower and Middle Cambrian. The formation is approximately 200 metres (660 ft) thick and was named after the city Kaili in the Guizhou province of southwest China.
Dinomischusis an extinct genus of stalked filter-feeding animals within the Cambrian period, with specimens known from the Burgess Shale and the Maotianshan Shales. While long of uncertain affinities, recent studies have suggested it to be a stem-group ctenophore.
Haplophrentis is a genus of tiny shelled hyolithid which lived in the Cambrian Period. Its shell was long and conical, with the open end protected by an operculum, from which two fleshy arms called helens protruded at the sides. These arms served to elevate the opening of the shells above the sea floor, acting like stilts.
Deuterostomes are bilaterian animals of the superphylum Deuterostomia, typically characterized by their anus forming before the mouth during embryonic development. Deuterostomia is further divided into four phyla: Chordata, Echinodermata, Hemichordata, and the extinct Vetulicolia known from Cambrian fossils. The extinct clade Cambroernida is thought to be a member of Deuterostomia.
Eldonia is an extinct soft-bodied cambroernid animal of unknown affinity, best known from the Fossil Ridge outcrops of the Burgess Shale, particularly in the 'Great Eldonia layer' in the Walcott Quarry. In addition to the 550 collected by Walcott, 224 specimens of Eldonia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.43% of the community. Species also occur in the Chengjiang biota, Siberia, and in Upper Ordovician strata of Morocco.
Herpetogaster is an extinct cambroernid genus of animal from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang biota of China, Blang Formation of China, Pioche Formation of Nevada and Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada containing the species Herpetogaster collinsi and Herpetogaster haiyanensis.
Eldoniids or eldonioids are an extinct clade of enigmatic disc-shaped animals which lived in the early to middle Paleozoic. They are characterized by their "medusoid" (jellyfish-shaped) bodies, with the form of a shallow dome opening below to an offset mouth supplemented by filamentous tentacles. Internally, they have a distinctive C-shaped cavity encompassing the gut, as well as hollow radial (radiating) structures arranged around a central ring canal. Most eldoniids are soft-bodied and can only be preserved in lagerstätten, but a few species may have hosted mineralized deposits. Historically, the affinities of eldoniids was enigmatic; recently, they been assessed as cambroernid deuterostomes. Their lifestyle is still an unresolved question; some authors reconstruct eldoniids as free-floating planktonic predators similar to jellyfish, while others argue that they were passive detritivores, embedded within the seabed for much of their life.
Stellostomites is a discoidal animal known from the Cambrian Chengjiang biota and classified with the eldoniids.
Paropsonema is a discoidal animal known from the Cambrian Chengjiang biota and possibly from Devonian formations in upstate New York. It is classified with the eldoniids.
Rotadiscus is a genus of discoidal animal known from the Cambrian Chengjiang biota and classified with the eldonioids.
Phlogites, a senior synonym of Cheungkongella ancestralis, is a cambroernid, and thus a member of the deuterostome total group. It is known from the Lower Cambrian Haikou Chengjiang deposits of China, and was initially compared to the tunicates. It was originally described as a tunicate, though, this identification has been questioned, especially with the discovery of another Chengjiang tunicate, Shankouclava. It has most recently been interpreted as a cambroernid related to Eldonia, Rotadiscus and Herpetogaster.
Pararotadiscus is an abundant Eldonioid fossil from the mid-Cambrian, and one of the most abundant taxa in the Kaili biota.
Ctenocystoidea is an extinct clade of echinoderms, which lived during the Cambrian and Ordovician periods. Unlike other echinoderms, ctenocystoids had bilateral symmetry, or were only very slightly asymmetrical. They are believed to be one of the earliest-diverging branches of echinoderms, with their bilateral symmetry a trait shared with other deuterostomes. Ctenocystoids were once classified in the taxon Homalozoa, also known as Carpoidea, alongside cinctans, solutes, and stylophorans. Homalozoa is now recognized as a polyphyletic group of echinoderms without radial symmetry. Ctenocystoids were geographically widespread during the Middle Cambrian, with one species surviving into the Late Ordovician.
The Cambrian chordates are an extinct group of animals belonging to the phylum Chordata that lived during the Cambrian, between 538 and 485 million years ago. The first Cambrian chordate known is Pikaia gracilens, a lancelet-like animal from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada. The discoverer, Charles Doolittle Walcott, described it as a kind of worm (annelid) in 1911, but it was later identified as a chordate. Subsequent discoveries of other Cambrian fossils from the Burgess Shale in 1991, and from the Chengjiang biota of China in 1991, which were later found to be of chordates, several Cambrian chordates are known, with some fossils considered as putative chordates.
Wufengella is a genus of extinct camenellan "tommotiid" that lived during the Early Cambrian. Described in 2022, the only species Wufengella bengtsonii was discovered from the Maotianshan Shales of Chiungchussu (Qiongzhusi) Formation in Yunnan, China. The fossil indicates that the animal was an armoured worm that close to the common ancestry of the phyla Phonorida, Brachiozoa and Bryozoa, which are collectively grouped into a clade called Lophophorata.
