Kimberella
Kimberella quadrata
The traces around Kimberella provide rare direct evidence of movement and feeding before the Cambrian explosion.
Image: Aleksey Nagovitsyn ( User:Alnagov ) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Loading map textures; the previous reconstruction stays visible...
Sites on today's globe · 1 marker
Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Kimberella quadrata
- Period
- Late Ediacaran
- Lived
- 555–538.8 Ma (555 million years ago)
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Habitat
- Open sea, Coast
Description
Kimberella was an oval, bilaterally symmetrical animal with a soft, mantle-like covering. Scratches and feeding traces in the sediment suggest that it scraped microbial mats with a small proboscis or radula-like organ. It could probably move across the seabed, although its exact means of locomotion has not been preserved. It is often regarded as a possible early relative of molluscs, but this classification is uncertain.
Habitat
Shallow seas with microbial mats on the seabed.
Fossil sites
White Sea coast, Arkhangelsk Oblast
Cultural profile: Russia →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Kimberella