Takakkawia: the strangest sponge ever?

Описание: This is the latest in a series (see playlist) on early sponge evolution, and tackles perhaps the strangest of all fossil sponges: Takakkawia. Trying to make sense of this is a real challenge, but with the help of fragmentary specimens it turns out to be possible!
https://www.academia.edu/download/507... (may need regsitration with academia.edu)
There are also other sponges with tetraradial symmetry from the early Cambrian: https://link.springer.com/article/10.... (paywall, I'm afraid).

The potentially MOST interesting thing is that there appears to be a close similarity to other sponges that have been assigned to early ctenophores in a series of recent papers... so we'll discuss what that means for early animal evolution too!
Ou et al. 2015: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
Zhao et al. 2019: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

Presented by Joe Botting, independent palaeontologist and Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum Wales.

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