Namacalathus hermanastes ?
GRI #691
Namacalathus was an animal composed of a cup on a stalk attached to the surface of the seafloor. It seems to have had a mineralized skeleton, possibly of calcite. The cup was hollow, with a series of six openings in the walls. Well-preserved, pyritized specimens have been found in Namibia with apparent soft-tissue preservation, enabling scientists to accurately reconstruct the original organism (Shore et al., 2021). It has been interpreted as a cnidarian, a protozoan, a comb jelly, or a member of a group that includes annelids, mollusks, and brachiopods. It has been found in Canada, Namibia, Oman, Russia (Paleobiology Database, n.d.) and Paraguay (Warren et al., 2017). This specimen was acquired because its impressions were attributed to Namacalathus hermanastes from Ediacaran rocks of Namibia. However, it should be noted that Namacalathus is typically preserved as calcified remains, which is not the case here. It is, therefore, possible that these molds represent a different organism or even a pseudofossil.
References:
Paleobiology Database, No date. Namacalathus hermanastes, The Paleobiology Database. Available at: https://paleobiodb.org/classic/basicTaxonInfo?taxon_no=152854 (Accessed: September 2024).
Shore, A.J. et al., 2021. Ediacaran metazoan reveals lophotrochozoan affinity and deepens root of Cambrian explosion, Science Advances, 7(1). doi:10.1126/sciadv.abf2933.
Warren, L.V. et al., 2017. Cloudina-Corumbella-Namacalathus Association from the ITAPUCUMI Group, Paraguay: Increasing ecosystem complexity and tiering at the end of the Ediacaran, Precambrian Research, 298, pp. 79–87. doi:10.1016/j.precamres.2017.05.003.