Xandarella


Xandarella is an extinct genus of xandarellid artiopodan known from the Cambrian of China and Morocco, the type species Xandarella spectaculum was described in 1991 from the Cambrian Stage 3 aged Chengjiang Biota in China.[1] An additional species Xandarella mauretanica was described from the Cambrian Stage 5 Tatelt Formation in Morocco in 2017, which preserved only the ventral anatomy.[2] Like other Xandarellids, the exoskeleton is unmineralised. The cephalon has pronounced eye slits, presumably derived from ancestral ventral stalked eyes.[3]