Ainiktozoon

Taxobox | name = "Ainiktozoon loganense"
fossil_range = Silurian


image_caption = "Calymene blumenbachi" & "Ainiktozoon loganese"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
subphylum = Crustacea
classis = Thylacocephala
ordo = Concavicarida
genus = "Ainiktozoon"
species = ""'A. loganense"
binomial = "Ainiktozoon loganense"
binomial_authority = Scourfield, 1937

"Ainiktozoon" is an enigmatic fossil genus from the Silurian of Scotland. Originally described as an early chordate, recent studies suggest that was in fact an arthropod, more precisely a crustacean belonging to the little known extinct class Thylacocephala.

The only discovered species "Ainiktozoon loganense" is known from a number of specimens from Silurian rocks (Llandovery series) at Lesmahagow in Scotland. "Ainiktozoon" is Greek for "puzzling animal".

It probably fed by swimming close against flat sea bed and sucking up detritus. Fact|date=April 2008

If a predator came near, it may have escaped upwards by violently expelling all the water downwards from its pharynx. Some fossils seem to show what may be a hardened area on the top (bottom on [http://www.btinternet.com/~vendian/FOSSILWEB/images/drawanik.jpgthe drawing] ) of its hump: this may have been to protect the top of its hump if it hit a rock overhang during this escape action. Fact|date=April 2008

External links

* [http://www.btinternet.com/~vendian/FOSSILWEB/images/ Images of Ainiktozoon] (see the files whose names start "ain".)

References

*cite journal |quotes=no |author=Ritchie, A. |year=1985 |title="Ainiktozoon loganense" Scourfield, a protochordate? from the Silurian of Scotland |journal=Alcheringa |volume=9 |pages=117–142
*cite journal |quotes=no |author=Van der Brugghen, W., F. R. Schram & D. M. Martill |year=1997 |title=The fossil "Ainiktozoon" is an arthropod |journal=Nature |volume=385 |pages=589–590 |url=http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v385/n6617/abs/385589a0.html |doi=10.1038/385589a0