Among the various stem-polychaete worms known from the Cambrian, the existence of more modern-style annelids like Pygocirrus hint that the common ancestor of modern forms might have evolved much earlier than previously thought. But this was complicated by the fact that all the known stem-polychaetes seem to have been active crawlers or swimmers, while the oldest modern lineage of polychaetes are burrowers, mostly sedentary, and sometimes tube-dwelling.
So if “crown group” forms that lived buried in the seafloor sediment must have diverged at least as far back as the early Cambrian, where were the fossils of them?
Continue reading “Cambrian Explosion Month #22: Phylum Annelida – Down the Wormhole”