Name the Bug # 14



Possibly the most evilly difficult ID challenge I've put up yet (unless you've seen this particular figure before, perhaps) but trust me, it's so worth it. The scale bar represents 1 mm. Attribution, as always, to follow.

Update: Identity now available here. Figure from Wilbur (2006).

11 comments:

  1. Okay, I'll throw out a wild guess since I've been thinking of them today:

    Aïstopod scales

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  2. (Possible big hint) Nope, it's not vertebrate.

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  3. This is cruel, it could be an EM of anything!

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  4. Then another big clue - it's Cambrian.

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  5. it doesn't look like echinoderm stereom nor like the scales from the small shelly fauna.

    My first guess was stromatolith but the details look too big.

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  6. Not an archaeocyath, nor a stromatolite (you're right, Steve, it's too big). But as for other options - don't be so quick to judge.

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  7. this is stereom?! plates from an edrioasteroid, helicoplacoid or carpoid?

    looking at the overlapping layers, i'd choose Helicoplacoid.

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  8. I will admit that I have no idea about the image but having read lots of your posts I know you're a tricky fellow with a liking for oddities so I'm going to have a wild stab at a stylophoran. Cothurnocystis?
    Please post something about the elephantidae next... You'd be amazed at how unlike a rhino the platybelodon is, under all that baggy skin.

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  9. Ok, for the next Mystery Micrograph, I'm gonna torture you with obscure non-descript biflagellates as punishment!

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  10. Hay! no fair posting a black fly when you haven't given us the answer to bug #14!

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