 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(February 2023) |
The Huainan biota is a collection of macroscopic skeletal organisms discovered in the early 1980s by Wang and Sun Weiguo in the Precambrian deposits of China (Huainan City, Anhui Province) with an age of 840-740 Ma (Tonian) [1] . A similar biota was also found by M. B. Gnilovskaya in Russia, on the Timan Ridge; its age is about 1 billion years. [2]
Contents
So far, it has been poorly studied. It is only known that its constituent organisms ( Protoarenicola , Pararenicola , Sinosabellidites ) reached several centimeters in size (which is significantly inferior to the Ediacaran ones) and, apparently, had the shape of segmented tubes, often goblet-shaped, with extensions at the end. Assumptions have been made about both the animal (worm-like) and algal nature of these organisms.
Huainan biota do not contain jellyfish-like "discs" (as does the Ediacaran biota), nor any forms close to sponges which are generally, although not universally, considered the most primitive of modern animal groups. [3] Apparently, the Huainan biota cannot be considered ancestral either to the Ediacaran, or even more so to the modern (Phanerozoic) biota.
