Early mollusk — Wiwaxia corrugata

Geologic period: Middle Cambrian

Age: Approximately 505 million years ago.

Feeding: A radula-like feeding apparatus suggests grazing or scraping food from surfaces.

Locomotion: Movement along the seafloor is inferred from body form.

Body plan: Slug-like body covered with scales and defensive spines.

Evidence: Sclerites, spines and mouth structures are directly preserved. Its exact position on the animal family tree remains interpretive.

Why it matters: Wiwaxia sits near major questions about the early evolution of mollusks and related animal groups.

Plain Language Identity: A small armored Cambrian animal traditionally compared with mollusks but whose exact evolutionary position has been debated.

What You Are Looking At: A soft-bodied animal protected by rows of hard sclerites and prominent spines.

Ecosystem: Burgess Shale marine ecosystem.

Preservation: Exceptional soft-body and hard-part preservation.

Open Questions: Do not present 'mollusk' as an uncontested final classification.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/fossils/wiwaxia-corrugata/

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; title and scientific name matched; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Wiwaxia corrugata

Evidence / representation: comparative_exact_taxon_visual

comparative_exact_taxon_visual

Oceans Before Dinosaurs: The Rise of Complex Animal Life.

Media license: CC0

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en