A SPHERICAL HAT-SHAPED ORGANISM FROM THE LOWER CAMBRIAN KUANCHUANPU FORMATION

The phosphatized spheroidal fossils preserved in three dimensions from the early Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Formation in south Shaanxi,China,are rather abundant.Generally,they are interpreted as metazoan embryos and microscopic algae,but some of them remain controversial in affinities.Here we report a kind of or sub-spherical shelly fossils characterized by one,two or more deep concaved,hat-shaped structures within a subsphere frame.Most incomplete specimens appear to be hat-shaped structure with a brim on account of taphonomic transportation and abrasion. We subdivided these fossils into single-hat,double-hat and complex hat types. There is no septum between adjacent primary or secondary hat-shaped structures within an individual.The shell wall consists of a smooth inner and a coarse outer layers.The fossil differs from co-occurring algae,metazoan embryos and other shelly metazoans,but is interpreted tentatively here as a tested protozoan.

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