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Microdictyon
| Microdictyon Temporal range:
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|---|---|
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| Diagrammatic reconstruction of Microdictyon sinicum | |
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| Microdictyon sinicum Fossil | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| (unranked): | Panarthropoda |
| Phylum: | †"Lobopodia" |
| Class: | †Xenusia |
| Order: | †Archonychophora |
| Family: | †Eoconchariidae |
| Genus: | †Microdictyon Bengtson, Matthews & Missarzhevsky, 1986 |
| Type species | |
| Microdictyon effusum Bengtson, Matthews & Missarzhevsky, 1986
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| Species | |
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See text | |
Microdictyon is an extinct armoured worm-like panarthropod coated with net-like scleritic plates, known from the Early Cambrian Maotianshan shale of Yunnan China and other parts of the world. Microdictyon is part of the ill-defined taxon – Lobopodia – that includes several other odd worm-like animals that resembling worm with legs, such as Hallucigenia, Onychodictyon, Cardiodictyon, Luolishania, and Paucipodia. The isolated sclerites of Microdictyon are known from other Lower Cambrian deposits. Microdictyon sclerites appear to have moulted; one sclerite seems to have been preserved during ecdysis.[1]
Microdictyon sinicum (Chen, Hou and Lu, 1989) is typical. The wormlike animal has ten pairs of sclerites (suggestions that these may be eyes or eye-like structures have no weight[2]) on the sides, matched to a pair of tentacle-like feet below. The head and posterior are tubular and featureless.
- ^ Figured in Dzik, J. (2003). "Early Cambrian lobopodian sclerites and associated fossils from Kazakhstan" (PDF). Palaeontology. 46 (1): 93–112. Bibcode:2003Palgy..46...93D. doi:10.1111/1475-4983.00289. S2CID 84215636.
- ^ Zhang, X. -G.; Aldridge, R. J. (2007). "Development and Diversification of Trunk Plates of the Lower Cambrian Lobopodians". Palaeontology. 50 (2): 401. Bibcode:2007Palgy..50..401Z. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2006.00634.x. S2CID 85293118.
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