Bomakellia

Taxobox
fossil_range=fossil_range|555
regnum="incertae sedis"
phylum=Rangeomorpha (?)
genus="Bomakellia"


species="Bomakellia kelleri"
image_caption="Bomakellia kelleri", reconstructed here as a proto-arthropod in yellow and green.
species_authority = Stankovsky "et al." 1990

"Bomakellia kelleri" was an 8–9½ cm long Ediacaran organism that lived in the ocean at what is now the shores of the White Sea of Russia. It has a long "body" lined with oval-shaped appendages, giving it a tri-lobed appearance, and has a rounded, vaguely triangular shield on one end.

Only one, partially preserved specimen is known,citation
author = Fryer, G.
title = Cambrian animals: evolutionary curiosities or the crucible of creation?
year = 1999
journal = Hydrobiologia
volume = 403
pages = 1–11
doi = 10.1023/A:1003799411987
url = http://www.springerlink.com/index/R355824080U27811.pdf] from the Ma|555|million year old Suzma Member of the Ust-Pinega Formation, making claims of affinity very conjectural.

It was originally likened to Ediacaran Proarticulata such as the "Flinders soft-bodied trilobite" and "Spriggina". Indeed, a study by B. M. Waggoner even concluded that "Bomakellia" was a primitive anomalocarid – the only Precambrian occurence, in fact. [cite journal |quotes=no |author=B. M. Waggoner |title=Phylogenic Hypotheses of the Relationships of Arthropods to Precambrian and Cambrian Problematic Fossil Taxa |journal=Systematic Biology |volume=45 |year=1996 |pages=280–293 |doi=10.2307/2413615] Waggoner went on to identify ridges in the cephalon as being eyes, making this creature the earliest known animal with sight. However, Mark McMenamin, in his book "The Garden of Ediacara", mentions that no one besides Waggoner has been able to find these "eye-ridges",cite book |author=McMenamin, Mark A. S. |title=The Garden of Ediacara |publisher=New York: Columbia University Press |year=1998 |id=ISBN 0-231-10559-2] and the suggestion is not widely held.

Closer examination identified a tetraradial symmetry, and a frond-like morphology more reminiscent of "Rangea" – its current interpretation is as a rangeomorph frond.citation
author = Dzik, J.
year = 2002
title = Possible ctenophoran affinities of the precambrian “sea-pen” "Rangea"
journal = Journal of Morphology
volume = 252
issue = 3
pages = 315–334
doi = 10.1002/jmor.1108]

References