Typhloesus
| Typhloesus Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| Fossil specimens | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Superphylum: | Lophotrochozoa |
| Phylum: | Mollusca (?) |
| Genus: | †Typhloesus (Conway Morris, 1990) |
| Species: | †T. wellsi
|
| Binomial name | |
| †Typhloesus wellsi (Melton and Scott, 1973)
| |
Typhloesus wellsi is an extinct species of enigmatic bilaterian animals from the Bear Gulch Limestone, United States. 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, 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".