Tentaculate Fossils from the Cambrian of Canada (British Columbia) and China (Yunnan) Interpreted as Primitive Deuterostomes

Jean-Bernard Caron, Simon Conway Morris, Degan Shu

Molecular and morphological evidence unite the hemichordates and echinoderms as the Ambulacraria, but their earliest history remains almost entirely conjectural. This is on account of the morphological disparity of the ambulacrarians and a paucity of obvious stem-groups. We describe here a new taxon Herpetogaster collinsi gen. et sp. nov. from the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) Lagerstätte. This soft-bodied vermiform animal has a pair of elongate dendritic oral tentacles, a flexible stolon with an attachment disc, and a re-curved trunk with at least 13 segments that is directed dextrally. A differentiated but un-looped gut is enclosed in a sac suspended by mesenteries. It consists of a short pharynx, a conspicuous lenticular stomach, followed by a narrow intestine sub-equal in length. This new taxon, together with the Lower Cambrian Phlogites and more intriguingly the hitherto enigmatic discoidal eldoniids (Cambrian-Devonian), form a distinctive clade (herein the cambroernids). Although one hypothesis of their relationships would look to the lophotrochozoans (specifically the entoprocts), we suggest that the evidence is more consistent with their being primitive deuterostomes, with specific comparisons being made to the pterobranch hemichordates and pre-radial echinoderms. On this basis some of the earliest ambulacrarians are interpreted as soft-bodied animals with a muscular stalk, and possessing prominent tentacles.