It's hump day! Show me your ... worms!

[EvolEd]

I was once a teaching assistant for a Diversity of Life course and it really left an indelible imprint on my awareness of diversity in general, as well as consolidated my fondness for all living things that began in childhood. It's incredible how successful the "worm" body plan has been and how this has been such an integral bauplan since the earliest phases of animal life. Being a bilaterian essentially equates to a wormy relative (i.e. acorn worms for we deuterostomes) so in honour of that on this auspicious hump day, please share your worms  - the more priapulid the better 

 

I'm not a hundred percent certain of the current systematics but these two samples from the early Cambrian Chengjiang Biota (Maotianshan Shales, Heilinpu Formation, China) were once considered stem priapulids (or nematomorphs). They are the iconic Maotianshania cylindrica and Cricocosmia jinningensis respectfully. I got these back when I wasn't 100% sure they were offering real Cambrian fossils so bought carefully and sparingly until I was able to prove they were in fact real. I let so many great fossils pass me by out of mistrust and I'm kicking myself to this day. The preparation was pretty raw but they're still amazing under magnification.

 

And the other fossil is a beautiful peanut worm Lecthaylus gregarius from the Lockport Shale, Blue Island, Illinois (Silurian).

 

Phallic-shaped worms with eversible pharynx or proboscis like these were likely the first "predators" in the earliest animal communities before they too were sucked up in the ongoing arms race by enigmatic arthropods like Anomalocarids. Happy hump day everyone.

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0052200

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/cambrian--worms-were-voracious-opportunists

 

cheers

Marcus

[PR0GRAM]

The only wormy thing I’ve got is what I believe is a Protopriapulites haikouensis /Sicyophorus rara idk which is name is more correct or it either are. He’s only 5mm- 1.5mm but I just thought it was neat looking! Also, the matrix is cleaned up now just no good updated pic.

[piranha]

48 minutes ago, PR0GRAM said:

The only wormy thing I’ve got is what I believe is a Protopriapulites haikouensis /Sicyophorus rara idk which is name is more correct or it either are.

 

 

"The monotypic Sicyophorus was originally described as having an uncertain taxonomic affinity, but Protopriapulites haikouensis Hou et al., 1999, a junior synonym, was assigned to the Priapulida based on the arrangement of scalids on the introvert (Hou et al. 1999, 2004a)."

 

 

Hou, X.G., Siveter, D.J., Siveter, D.J., Aldridge, R.J., Cong, P.Y., Gabbott, S.E., Ma, X.Y., Purnell, M.A., Williams, M. 2017
The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Animal Life. 
Wiley-Blackwell Scientific Publishing, Second Edition, 316 pp.

[EvolEd]

8 hours ago, PR0GRAM said:

The only wormy thing I’ve got is what I believe is a Protopriapulites haikouensis /Sicyophorus rara idk which is name is more correct or it either are. He’s only 5mm- 1.5mm but I just thought it was neat looking! Also, the matrix is cleaned up now just no good updated pic.

Nice. I've been tempted to add one proper official priapulid from the Chengjiang biota but just haven't gotten around to it yet. I have a few worms (a polychaete, spoon worm, etc.) from Mazon Creek but the details on them aren't the greatest. I was stunned by the detail on the peanut worm I have and of course once magnified these stem priapulids/nematomorphs. Thanks for sharing!  

 

 

[Neanderthal Shaman]

Petrified wood with shipworm tunnels. Not technically worms (they're highly modified bivalves) but close enough!