Paucipodia inermis is a lobopodian known from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang lagerstätte.
Discovery and naming
Description
Gut Paucipodia’s gut is puzzling; in some places, it is preserved in three dimensions, infilled with sediment; whereas in others it may be flat. These cannot result from phosphatisation, which is usually responsible for three-dimensional gut preservation, for the phosphate content of the guts is under 1% – the contents comprise quartz and muscovite. Its fossils do not suggest it had any sclerites, especially when compared with the related Hallucigenia.
Classification In a 2016 study redescribing Helenodora, Paucipodia was found to be its closest relative.
The slightly simplified cladogram below is from a 2025 paper by Knecht et al. redescribing the lobopodian Palaeocampa anthrax. In it, Paucipodia was found to be a basal lobopodian
See also Lobopod guts
References