Unidentified Jellyfish

GRI #641

• Cnidaria is a diverse phylum of aquatic animals including jellyfish, coral, and sea anemones.

• The jellyfish in this specimen appear to have had a bag-shaped body structure with an array of thin, tentacle-like appendages.

• This Cambrian organism has sometimes been confused with Hiemalora, a soft-bodied, stationary marine organism found in Ediacaran strata (Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, n.d.).

• This sample comes from the Upper Cambrian Mt. Simon Sandstone, Wisconsin (Hagadorn et al., 2002). It is likely that the fossil has been artificially stained to enhance its subtle features.

References:

Hagadorn, J.W., Dott Jr, R.H. and Damrow, D., 2002. Stranded on a Late Cambrian shoreline: Medusae from central Wisconsin. Geology, 30(2), pp.147-150. https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(2002)030%3C0147:SOALCS%3E2.0.CO;2

Hudson Institute of Mineralogy. (n.d.). Hiemalora - mindat.org. Mindat. https://www.mindat.org/taxon-4883389.html