Qinscolex and Shanscolex, new genera from China

[Halichoeres]

The Burgess Shale doesn't have a monopoly on amazing Cambrian fossils. This paper describes two new cycloneuralians (distant relatives of arthropods and lobopods) from the Zhangjiagou Lägerstatte in China. Meet Qinscolex and Shanscolex:


Here's a micrograph of one of the fossils. Check out that detail!


Here's a reconstruction of Qinscolex.

Paper (open access): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/spp2.1239

Maybe someday Vitae or PNSO will make some Paleozoic animals. I wouldn't mind a figure of one of these spiky weirdoes.

[Faelrin]

Okay but that one in the illustration looks like an eldritch abomination... I think I love it.

I'll have to check out the paper tomorrow, and do some more research on these and where they are from.

[Halichoeres]

Eldritch abominations, but only really scary if you're tiny. The scale bar in the illustration is 1 millimeter!