Typhloesus Temporal range:
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Fossil specimens | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Superphylum: | Lophotrochozoa |
Phylum: | Mollusca (?) |
Genus: | †Typhloesus (Conway Morris, 1990) |
Species: | †T. wellsi
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Binomial name | |
†Typhloesus wellsi (Melton and Scott, 1973)
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Typhloesus wellsi is an extinct species of enigmatic bilaterian animals from the Bear Gulch Limestone. It was once thought to be the first body fossil of a conodont, based on what turned out to be its gut contents; it is now thought to exhibit a radula, which would make it a mollusc,[1] although different types of animal have independently evolved radula-like features. Mark Purnell, of the Centre for Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester, said that it was not definitively known "what this weird thing is".[2]