Bomakellia
{{Short description|Ediacaran fossil organism}}
{{Speciesbox
| fossil_range = Ediacaran {{fossil_range|555}}
| image = Bomakellia_colorsm.jpg
| image_caption = B. kelleri trace fossil
| genus = Bomakellia
| parent_authority = Fedonkin, 1985
| species = kelleri
| authority = Fedonkin, 1985{{cite journal |author=M. A. Fedonkin |year=1985 |title=Systematic Description of Vendian Metazoa |journal=Vendian System: Historical–Geological and Paleontological Foundation |volume=1: Paleontology |location=Moscow: Nauka |pages=70–106}}
}}
Bomakellia is an extinct petalonamid from the Late Ediacaran. It is estimated to have lived some 555 million years ago, and has only been found in the Ustʹ Pinega Formation in Northwestern Russia. Originally described as a primitive arthropod-like creature, more recent studies have seen it placed within the phylum Petalonamae. Bomakellia kelleri is the only species.
Discovery
The holotype, and only, fossil of Bomakellia was found in the Syuzma River of the Ustʹ Pinega Formation, in Arkhangelsk Oblast of Northwestern Russia, and described in 1985.
Description
Bomakellia kelleri has a frond-like shape, growing up to {{cvt|90|mm|1}} in height. Despite there only being a single fossil, it still preserves enough to show that Bomakellia was a small frond with a tetraradial symmetry, bearing similarities with Rangea, another rangeomorph petalonamid.{{Cite journal| 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| pmid = 11948678| s2cid = 22844283}}
Affinities
File:Bomakellia_kelleri_e.JPG|An outdated reconstruction of Bomakellia kelleri as a proto-arthropod, based on B. M. Waggoner's interpretation.
File:Bomakellia kelleri.JPG|A more recent reconstruction of Bomakellia kelleri, this time as a petalonamid, based on Dzik J's interpretation.
When originally described in 1985, Bomakellia was interpreted to be a form of early arthropod, with a study by B. M. Waggoner concluding that the organism was a primitive anomalocarid and erroneously identifying the ridges of its supposed cephalon as eyes, which would have made Bomakellia the oldest known animal with vision.{{cite journal|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|jstor=2413615|issue=2|publisher=Systematic Biology, Vol. 45, No. 2|doi-access=free }}. However, this interpretation has not been widely accepted, and in some cases not acknowledged.{{cite book|author=McMenamin, Mark A. S.|title=The Garden of Ediacara|publisher=New York: Columbia University Press|year=1998|isbn=978-0-231-10559-0}}{{Cite journal| 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| s2cid = 21020029}}
More recent studies have placed Bomakellia within the family Charniidae, which itself is apart of the clade Rangeomorpha, and phylum Petalonamae, based on a better re-description of the singular fossil.
See also
{{Portal|Paleontology}}