Description

Eldonia ludwigi
Middle Cambrian
Burgess Shale, Stephens Formation
Field, British Columbia, Canada

36mm on 85mm slab. Very rare.

Problematica. Soft-bodied. Lagerstatten. Paropsonomid.

Eldonia is an extinct genus of soft-bodied animal superficially resembling a jellyfish but once thought to be a sea cucumber – an interpretation still being considered. It’s up in the air on how to classify it. You can find comments on the web that it’s a lophophorate (a member of the Superphylum, Lophophorata). It’s known from the Early Cambrian of Chengjiang and the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale – recently reported from the Early Ordovician of Morocco.

See: Alessandrello, Anna, and Giacomo Bracchi. 2003.
“Eldonia berbera n. sp., a new species of the enigmatic genus Eldonia Walcott, 1911 from the Rawtheyan (Upper Ordovician) of Anti-Atlas (Erfoud, Tafilalt, Morocco).” Atti della Società italiana di scienze naturali e del museo civico di storia naturale di Milano 144.2: 337-358.