Amiskwia
Amiskwia is a small, probably gelatinous, fossil animal of unknown affinity from Middle
Cambrian
the
Burgess shale near Field, BC. The preservation of the 5 known specimens leaves much to be desired. The head contains two short tentacles. The body has two small lateral (side) fins and a flattened tail. The gut runs straight from the head almost to the tail.
Amiskwia vaguely resembles a tiny walrus constructed by a magician out of balloons.
Amiskwia was originally described by
C. D. Walcott who thought he saw three buccal spines as a
chaetognath worm. Some workers held out for it being an nemertean. Morris-1977 regards it as being the single known species in an otherwise unknown phylum.
Amiskwia is thought to have been a swimming animal trapped inadvertently in the turbid flows that formed the Burgess Shale deposits. There is one species, Amiskwia sagittiformis.
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