Peytoia nathorsti

Peytoia nathorsti Temporal range:
Restoration of Peytoia nathorsti
The holotype of Petoyia nathorsti, a single oral cone
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	†Dinocaridida
Order:	†Radiodonta
Family:	†Hurdiidae
Genus:	†Peytoia
Species:	†P. nathorsti
Binomial name
†Peytoia nathorsti Walcott, 1911
Synonyms
Laggania cambria Walcott, 1911

Peytoia nathorsti is a species of hurdiid radiodont from the Burgess Shale. It is the type species of the genus Peytoia.

108 specimens of Peytoia nathorsti are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.21% of the community.

History

Like the iconic Burgess Shale radiodont Anomalocaris canadensis, Peytoia nathorsti has a complicated taxonomic history. It and Laggania cambria were named in the same paper in 1911. The type specimen of Peytoia nathorsti consisted of an isolated oral cone, which Walcott interpreted as the body of a jellyfish. The type specimen of Laggania cambria was a poorly preserved body and oral cone, which Walcott interpreted as being a holothurian. In 1978, however, Simon Conway Morris recognized that the "mouthparts" of L. cambria were nearly identical to the "body" of P. nathorsti, so he suggested that L. cambria was a composite of a sponge, Corallia undulata, and a Peytoia nathorsti. Conway Morris regarded Laggania cambria as a synonym of Peytoia nathorsti, and in doing so made Peytoia nathorsti be the valid name among the simultaneously-named synonyms.

In 1985, Harry B. Whittington and Derek E. G. Briggs described the first full-body specimens of Peytoia nathorsti along with the first full-body specimen of Anomalocaris canadensis. Based on the newly apparent similarities between the two species, they considered P. nathorsti to be a species of Anomalocaris, as Anomalocaris nathorsti.

Finally, new data on the morphology of the oral cone of Anomalocaris canadensis in 2011 confirmed that it was distinct from Peytoia nathorsti.