Thelxiope is a genus of Cambrian and Ordovician arthropod. Four named species are known, the type species T. palaeothalassia is known from the Burgess Shale, Canada[1] T. holmani is from the Wheeler Shale of Utah, Thelxiope tangi from the Linyi Lagerstätte of Shandong, China, and T. spinosa, which is known from both the Linyi Lagerstätte and the Wheeler Shale. An indeterminate species is also known from the Ordovician (Floian) Fezouata Formation in Morocco.[2][3] It is a member of Mollisoniida, alongside close relatives Mollisonia and Corcorania. They are suggested to be stem-chelicerates.[3]

Thelxiope
Temporal range: Cambrian Stage 5–Floian
Fossil and illustration of Thelxiope tangi
Life restoration of Thelxiope spinosa
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Euarthropoda
Order: Mollisoniida
Genus: Thelxiope
Simonetta & Delle Cave, 1975
Type species
Thelxiope palaeothalassia
Simonetta & Delle Cave, 1975
Other species
  • Thelxiope holmani Lerosey-Aubril, Skabelund and Ortega-Hernández, 2020
  • Thelxiope spinosa (Conway Morris & Robison, 1988)
  • Thelxiope tangi Sun. et al. 2022
Synonyms

Ecnomocaris Conway Morris & Robison, 1988

Comparison of 4 Thelxiope species, T. holmani (top) T. palaeothalassia (centre) Thelxiope sp. from the Fezouata Formation of Morocco (bottom left) T. spinosa (bottom right)

References

edit
  1. ^ "Thelxiope palaeothalassia". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Virtual Museum of Canada. 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12.
  2. ^ Sun, Zhixin; Zhao, Fangchen; Zeng, Han; Luo, Cui; Van Iten, Heyo; Zhu, Maoyan (2022-07-11). "The middle Cambrian Linyi Lagerstätte from the North China Craton: a new window on Cambrian evolutionary fauna". National Science Review. 9 (7): nwac069. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwac069. ISSN 2095-5138. PMC 9273334. PMID 35832778.
  3. ^ a b Lerosey-Aubril, Rudy; Skabelund, Jacob; Ortega-Hernández, Javier (2020-04-09). "Revision of the mollisoniid chelicerate(?) Thelxiope, with a new species from the middle Cambrian Wheeler Formation of Utah". PeerJ. 8: e8879. doi:10.7717/peerj.8879. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 7151752. PMID 32296605.