| Cascolus Temporal range: | |
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| The digitally reconstructed holotype of Cascolus | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Genus: | † Cascolus Siveter et al, 2017 |
| Species: | †C. ravitis |
| Binomial name | |
| †Cascolus ravitis Siveter et al, 2017 | |
Cascolus is an extinct genus of stem-mandibulate known from the Coalbrookdale Formation.
Cascolus is a long, somewhat vermiform arthropod, roughly 9 millimetres long. It has a head segment containing a head shield, stalked eyes and five pairs of limbs, the first similar to megacheirans and the other four biramous with gnathobases, followed by a nine-segmented thorax and two possibly limbless segments near the posterior. The trunk remains similar in size through tergites 1-4, and then decreases in width onwards into the limbless segments. [1]
Cascolus appears to have been a nektobenthic animal, possibly a scavenger.
Cascolus was named in honour of Sir David Attenborough. The genus name derives from "castrum" ("stronghold") and "colus" ("dwelling in"), alluding to the Middle or Old English source for the name "Attenborough". The specific name ravitis derives from "Ratae" (the Roman name for Leicester), "vita" ("life") and "commeatis" ("messenger")
Cascolus is known from a single specimen from the Silurian Coalbrookdale Formation in England, a diverse Silurian Lagerstatte.
Cascolus was originally considered as a stem-group phyllocarid. [1] According to phylogenic analysis in Pulsipher et al. (2022), it is considered as stem-mandibulate instead. [2]
| Arthropoda |
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Sidneyia is an extinct marine arthropod known from fossils found from the Early to the Mid Cambrian of China and the Mid Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada.
The Thylacocephala are group of extinct probable mandibulate arthropods, that have been considered by some researchers as having possible crustacean affinities. As a class they have a short research history, having been erected in the early 1980s.
Waptia is an extinct genus of marine arthropod from the Middle Cambrian of North America. It grew to a length of 6.65 cm (3 in), and had a large bivalved carapace and a segmented body terminating into a pair of tail flaps. It was an active swimmer and likely a predator of soft-bodied prey. It is also one of the oldest animals with direct evidence of brood care. Waptia fieldensis is the only species classified under the genus Waptia, and is known from the Burgess Shale Lagerstätte of British Columbia, Canada. Specimens of Waptia are also known from the Spence Shale of Utah, United States.
Acaenoplax is an extinct worm-shaped mollusc known from the Coalbrookdale Formation of Herefordshire, England. It lived in the Silurian period. It was a couple of centimetres long and half a centimetre wide, and comprises serially repeated units with seven or eight shells, and rings of 'spines'.
Cinerocaris is an extinct genus of phyllocarid crustaceans known from the Silurian aged Coalbrookdale Formation in Herefordshire, England. It contains the species Cinerocaris magnifica.
The Artiopoda is a grouping of extinct arthropods that includes trilobites and their close relatives. It was erected by Hou and Bergström in 1997 to encompass a wide diversity of arthropods that would traditionally have been assigned to the Trilobitomorpha. Trilobites, in part due to abundance of findings owing to their mineralized exoskeletons, are by far the best recorded, diverse, and long lived members of the clade. Other members, which lack mineralised exoskeletons, are known mostly from Cambrian deposits.
Offacolus is an extinct genus of euchelicerate, a group of chelicerate arthropods. Its only species, O. kingi, has been found in deposits from the Silurian period in the Wenlock Series Lagerstätte of Herefordshire, England. The genus is named after Offa, a king from the ancient kingdom of Mercia, and colus, a person who dwelled among the Offa's Dyke. The species name honors Robert Joseph King, a British mineralogist who found the fossils of Offacolus.
Sollasina is an extinct genus of ophiocistioid that is known from Silurian to Devonian.
Parioscorpio is an extinct genus of arthropod containing the species P. venator known from the Silurian-aged Waukesha Biota of the Brandon Bridge Formation near Waukesha, Wisconsin. This animal has gone through a confusing taxonomic history, being called an arachnid, crustacean, and an artiopodan arthropod at various points. This animal is one of the more famous fossil finds from Wisconsin, due to the media coverage it received based on its original description in 2020 as a basal scorpion.
Hymenocarina is an order of extinct arthropods known from the Cambrian. They possess bivalved carapaces, typically with exposed posteriors. Members of the group are morphologically diverse and had a variety of ecologies, including as filter feeders and as predators. Recent research has generally considered them to be stem or crown group members of Mandibulata, due to the presence of mandibles in some species.
Vicissicaudata is an unranked group of artiopods, containing Cheloniellida, Aglaspidida and several other genera outside these groups like Sidneyia and Emeraldella.
Thanahita is a genus of extinct lobopodian and known from the middle Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte at the England–Wales border in UK. It is monotypic and contains one species, Thanahita distos. Discovered in 2018, it is estimated to have lived around 430 million years ago and is the only known extinct lobopodian in Europe, and the first Silurian lobopodian known worldwide.
Coalbrookdale Formation, earlier known as Wenlock Shale or Wenlock Shale Formation and also referred to as Herefordshire Lagerstätte in palaeontology, is a fossil-rich deposit (Konservat-Lagerstätte) in Powys and Herefordshire at the England–Wales border in UK. It belongs to the Wenlock Series of the Silurian Period within the Homerian Age. It is known for its well-preserved fossils of various invertebrate animals many of which are in their three-dimensional structures. Some of the fossils are regarded as earliest evidences and evolutionary origin of some of the major groups of modern animals.
Carbotubulus is a genus of extinct worm belonging to the group Lobopodia and known from the Carboniferous Carbondale Formation of the Mazon Creek area in Illinois, US. A monotypic genus, it contains one species Carbotubulus waloszeki. It was discovered and described by Joachim T. Haug, Georg Mayer, Carolin Haug, and Derek E.G. Briggs in 2012. With an age of about 300 million years, it is the first long-legged lobopodian discovered after the period of Cambrian explosion.
Bundenbachiellus is an extinct genus of arthropod described from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate of Germany. This genus is known from only one species, B. giganteus. Alongside its possible relative Enalikter from Silurian, it is possible that genus is late-living example of Megacheira, "great-appendage arthropod".
Acheronauta is a genus of extinct worm-shaped arthropod that lived in the early Silurian Waukesha biota fossil site in southeast Wisconsin. This arthropod was first discovered alongside the biota in 1985, but was not fully described until October 2022. This creature was recognized and described as a possible early mandibulate. This description is very important as much of the fauna of the biota remain undescribed, and its discovery has allowed for paleontologists to get a better grasp of the diversity of the arthropod fauna at the site. Multiple phylogenetic analyses were performed, and it was found that this arthropod forms a previously undiscovered clade with the Devonian stem-arthropod Captopodus, and the somewhat enigmatic group Thylacocephala.
Carimersa is an extinct genus of artiopodan arthropod known from the Silurian Coalbrookdale Formation of Herefordshire, England.
Tanazios is a genus of Silurian stem-mandibulate.
Captopodus is an extinct genus of stem-mandibulate known from the Early Devonian. This creature was described in 2012 from four fossils found in the Hunsrück Slate, an early Devonian lagerstätten in Germany that represents one of the few marine sites from the Devonian with soft tissue preservation.