Product Code Database
Carbotubulus is a genus of Lobopodia known from the Carboniferous Carbondale Formation of the Mazon Creek area in Illinois, US. A Monotypic taxon genus, it contains one species Carbotubulus waloszeki. The animal was discovered and described by Joachim T. Haug, Georg Mayer, Carolin Haug, and Derek E.G. Briggs in 2012. With an age of about 300 million years, it is the first long-legged lobopodian discovered after the period of Cambrian explosion.
The animal's genus name is derived from two words. The first, "carbo", refers to it living in Carboniferous. The second, "tubulus", is Latin for "small pipe" and is a reference to its pipe-like legs. The species name "waloszeki" honors Dieter Waloszek for his work on arthropod evolution.
When Carbotubulus was first described, its systematic position was not clear and was loosely assigned to the phylum Arthropoda. Discovery of Cambrian lobopod Ovatiovermis from the Burgess Shale in 2017 led to a reanalysis of lobopodian classification, and Carbotubulus was assigned to a group Panarthropoda, specifically belonging to the family Hallucigeniidae along with the various species of Hallucigenia and Cardiodictyon catenulum. This classification is still controversial, especially after the discovery of the second post-Cambrian (Silurian) long-legged lobopodian, Thanahita distos, from the Herefordshire Lagerstätte at the England–Wales border in UK in 2018. The new interpretation suggest that Carbotubulus and Cardiodictyon may lie outside the hallucigeniid family.
|
|
