Description

Phyllocystis jingxiensis
Carpoid
Late Cambrian (Furongonian)
Guole Formation
Guole, Jingxi, Guangxi Province, China

83mm slab with newly described 20mm carpoid.

Echinoderm.

Phyllocystis is a genus of carpoid known from the Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician of China and France.

Carpoids appeared during the Cambrian but apparently died out in the Early Devonian. Scientists have been fascinated by the group once considered stem-group echinoderms and then allied with other groups because they lacked the radial symmetry of echinoderms. In fact, they lack any symmetry and can be variable in form. However, their skeletons have the same calcite-composed, crystalline structure as echinoderms.

What is a carpoid? This article explains them (PDF)