Nectocaris

Nectocaris is a genus of uncertain affinity from the Cambrian Period of Canada, China, and Australia.

Description
Nectocaris has a flattened body with fleshy fins running along each side. The head possessed two stalked eyes, a pair of tentacles, and a funnel that opened up on the underside of the body.

Classification
The classification and taxonomy of Nectocaris is uncertain, and various identities for the genus have been put forth since its discovery, including a cephalopod or a coeloid. There is one species, N. pteryx.

History
Although Charles Doolittle Walcott had first photographed specimens of Nectocaris in the 1910s, it was not until 1976 that it was described by Simon Conway Morris. The Italian paleontologist Alberto Simonetta interpreted the animal as a primitive chordate, and reconstructed it with a body shape somewhat similar to that of Pikaia. In 2010, Martin Smith and Jean-Bernard Caron reexamined the fossil and found it to be more like that of a primitive cephalopod. This would move the origin of cephalopods back about 20 million years to the Cambrian explosion.