Initially interpreted as a primitive Cambrian mollusk, Shishania aculeata — a 500-million-year-old spine-covered fossil found in China’s Yunnan province — is in fact a distant relative of sponge-like creatures known as chancelloriids, according to a team of paleontologists from Yunnan University, Yuxi Normal University and Durham University. Shishania aculeata. Image credit: Yang et al., doi: 10.1126/science.adv463. Shishania aculeata...
