Description
Lobopod cf. Onychodictyon sp.
Early Ordovician (Arenigian)
Fezouata Formation
Mecissi-Zagora Region, Draa Valley
Morocco
Big 90mm undescribed complete lobopod on 145mm slab. Repaired crack, but extremely rare and unusual. Fezouata lobopods are always strangely faint, suggesting a different preservation than the normally very colorful arthropods, worms and echinoderms. Their soft parts may not have fixed iron minerals as readily as the other creatures, making them even more rare and difficult to find.
Looks similar to Onychodictyon from Chengjiang or the “Collins’ Monster” from the Burgess Shale. Ever since the discovery of Hallucigenia and Aysheaia in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale at the beginning of the 20th century, lobopods have been found in a number of Cambrian sites, but almost never in the Ordovician or younger rocks with rare exceptions in the Mazon Creek lagerstatte..
